Fish For All

19/10/2026

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FREMANTLE BLESSING OF THE FLEET FESTIVAL 2026

Sunday 25th October 2026 | St Patrick's Basilica & Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour

Join the Fremantle Fishing Fleet Festival Association for one of Fremantle’s most cherished traditions, the annual Blessing of the Fleet, celebrating faith, community and the enduring maritime heritage of Fremantle’s fishing families.

Held in conjunction with Little Italy by the Sea 2026, presented by Nella Fitzgerald Events and the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour Traders Group at Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour, this year’s celebration promises a spectacular day of Italian culture, music, food, family traditions and maritime heritage. Join us for:

MASS & TRIDUUM 20th - 22nd OCTOBER - the celebration begins with the traditional Triduum at St Patrick’s Basilica, Fremantle:
Tuesday 20th October | 7:30pm
Mass in Italian - dedicated to the Madonne
Wednesday 21st October | 7:30pm
Mass in English - dedicated to the youth
Thursday 22nd October | 7:30pm
Mass in English & Italian - dedicated to honouring the deceased

FESTIVAL DAY — SUNDAY 25th OCTOBER
9:30am — Mass
Mass in Italian at St Patrick’s Basilica

11:00am-8.30pm Little Italy by the Sea at Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour

Little Italy By The Sea
Piazza Italia (main hub)
* Nonna Angela's Piazza with the Big Italian Lunch
* Nonna Angela's Little Italian Kitchen: kids and families learn to make pasta, pizza dough, mozzarella, arancini and Italian sweets
* Storytelling sessions on family, hospitality and community
* Main Festival Stage: headline acts, Italian music, cultural and dance performances, fashion showcases
* Licensed Italian Piazza Bar with Italian wines, Aperol Spritz, beers and food
Piazza of the Fishermen (Mews Park)
* Great Waiters Race
* Lobsters on the grill, prawn skewers and sardines
* Italian fashion parades, dance and cultural performances
* Italian Cocktail Masterclasses
* Waterfront dining, premium food and drink, VIP hospitality
* Roving Venetian Carnivale characters
Bathers Beach
* Grand Venetian Carnivale Parade, with children in handcrafted masks, stilt walkers, musicians, dancers, mermaids and the Magical Unicorns
* Mermaid Aquarium Experience and Magical Unicorns encounters
* Kids' LEGO building, workshops and beachside entertainment
WA Shipwrecks Museum Precinct
* Monster Truck Rides
* Princesses and Superheroes meet-and-greets
* Italian and exotic vehicle displays
* Interactive exhibits and family activities
* Retro Spaghetti Eating Competition
Evening finale
* Paradiso Sunset Club, with a DJ and Mediterranean music

11:30-12:30pm - Annual Rope Coiling Competition at the Molfetta Quay Carpark with amazing prizes up for grabs.

2:00pm — Traditional Procession - the procession will depart from St Patrick’s Basilica and make its way towards Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour

3:00-3:30pm - arrival of procession at the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour (Molfetta Quay) and blessing of the fleet

4:30pm — Benediction - Join us back at the Basilica for the Benediction

7:00pm - From the Sea to the Stars - A Blessing of the Fleet Fireworks Spectacular
Come and be part of this very special Fremantle tradition as we gather to remember those who came before us, celebrate the fishing families and community of today and pray for the safety and prosperity of those who continue to make their living from the sea.

18/10/2026

- great reel from Territory Seafood Crew- well explained by Rob, this is happening all over Australia, and UWA have a big hand in this.

16/10/2026

Description in the comments, Happy Friday!

09/10/2026

Your weekly “meet the bureaucrat” post. Description in the comments.

06/10/2026

Today was proof that Jackie Jarvis MLC has absolutely no idea about fisheries science- and even had the audacity to bag one of, if not the most respected fisheries scientist in WA.
Caught out once again obviously just spinning bad advice from her office and others- throwing extra cash around and buying time by deflecting to the CSIRO to look clever.

Well- sorry to burst your bubble champion.
There was a doubling of the shark tagging budget at DPIRD- and we always will support better science.

However- CSIRO’s “close kin marking recapture” program requires a lot of juvenile samples to be reliable.

Which CSIRO already acknowledges is a difficult task for the south west stock, west of Victoria.
The reason? They require 60 to 70 juvenile white samples over 5 years to make it work.

Which is easy over East where they have two well known aggregations and can easily achieve that.
In WA- they don’t know of any. The program was also designed for over there, where it will work.

So, at an average of 16 tagged a year in WA, but not all juveniles as required, the program here would need to be beefed up by around 7 times.

Not simply doubled to make yourself look good.

And so the under resourcing of DPIRD continues- at the expense of people’s safety.

Pretty irresponsible we reckon- and also totally misleading the public- again.

Fishing Around Western AustraliaRoger CookKirrilee Warr MLABasil ZempilasABC NewsHon. Rod Caddies MLCStayN Afloat Ocean & FishingSouthwestern Fresh FishShane Love MLABen Small MP

05/10/2026

The truth- from those that know!

Not our picture and not off our boat but a picture of one of the incidental Great White catches retired former WA Fisheries scientist Jim Penn spoke about in his interview by the Zone 1 Shark Fishery while setting nets chasing smaller Bronze Whaler, Gummy & Whiskery sharks for predominantly the fish & chip trade in WA.

Guessing the photo was taken in the early 90’s sometime and believe from memory it was taken at the Dead Finish Beach at Augusta.

No doubt that shark would have moved up and down the coast and in particular during the annual Whale migration probably falling victim to the net trying to eat a small Shark out of it.

The nets didn’t always stop them but we have come to learn Sharks become “net shy” preferring to avoid areas where shark net fishing occurs probably because they know they are getting caught.

One day you could catch 300 Sharks and the next day pretty much nothing they would just bolt and we believe the school used to figure out they were getting caught and move because no way you had caught the whole lot. Sometimes changes in weather like sharp barometer movements or impending cold fronts with big swells would make them move vast distances very quickly too.

Shark catches were always best in areas no one was fishing and mostly just outside the borders of closures. In particular the Southern and Northern boundaries of the Perth Metro closure, and just outside the surf zone closures between Cape Naturaliste & Cape Leeuwin. We used to joke they knew where it was safest from fishing and stayed inside those boundaries. People who have Shark fished will know exactly what we mean.

Quite often people on the beach would take photos of our boats and complain and say we were doing the wrong things so close to shore but that’s where the Sharks were on those days.
We used to get accused of catching demersal Scalefish in so close but the Shark would get on the beaches thick particularly during Summer. Bunbury’s beaches were some of the Zone 1 Shark fishery’s best shark catching areas in the whole of WA.

In this picture was some of the best Shark fishermen WA has ever seen and in particular one guy who lived and breathed Shark fishing until the day he passed away around 15 years ago.

He used to get upset at the Fisheries meetings back then saying the Shark fishery in WA was being over managed and over regulated so would hate to hear what he would have to say if he was still around now after a full closure with 3 weeks notice over Christmas last year.

The Shark fishery got closed because of its Scalefish take but there are still 2 or 3 fishery’s out there allowed to operate targeting other species taking similar annual amounts of incidental Dhufish, Pink Snapper & Baldchin Groper takes as well as recreational fishing off the beach for all the same demersal species.

Sorry to say but as lifetime commercial Shark fishermen our view is not only will Great White attacks increase sharply but also shark depredation on demersal fish both hooked and living freely as 2-300 tons of Bronze Whaler, Tiger, Sandbar, Bull and Spinner Sharks get left in the water now on the West Coast annually.

That’s not mentioning the other 100 or more tons of Whiskery and Gummy Sharks, the latter of which don’t worry humans or demersals but enjoy a diet which consists of WA Rock Lobster and heaps of Blue Swimmer Crabs especially close to shore between Mandurah and Biningup and near Busselton.

Good job Minister Jarvis and good job DPIRD 👏

04/10/2026

Seriously- if you’re going to rely on CSIRO to fix your shark problem Roger Cook then you may as well hand over all of our fisheries to AFMA to manage- because it’s becoming clearer by the day that the previous minister Don Punch MLA, then the current minister Jackie Jarvis MLC and DPIRD can’t do the job.
Jeez- pretty sad when you can’t blame the victim and blame someone else’s science instead🤦‍♂️

02/10/2026

Explanation in the comments.

01/10/2026

This is why DPIRD FOI are continuing to delay requests.
More evidence of the department totally misleading the Minister.
The Risk Status’ were never reviewed independently- these are straight out lies given to the Minister in briefing notes by senior DPIRD staff.