Commercial fishing logbooks

Commercial and charter fishers operating in Queensland's state-managed fisheries are required by law to complete daily logbooks.

Fisheries Queensland uses this catch and effort data to manage the state’s fisheries in a sustainable way.

Recording information in logbooks

The information that you provide in your logbook returns is used for fisheries management and research purposes. So it's important that you provide accurate information about:

• retained catch
• discarded catch (in certain logbooks)
• time spent fishing
• location catch was taken
• fishing equipment used
• interactions with threatened, endangered and protected animals (see below).

Use our fish species guides to accurately identify and report species.

Logbook examples

Each fishery is different, so there are different logbooks and reporting requirements for each fishery. Example pages from each logbook are provided below:

Buyers

• Beche-de-mer buyers (PDF, 16KB)

Catch disposal records

• Crab fisheries catch disposal record (PDF, 82KB)
• Harvest fisheries catch disposal record (PDF, 88KB)
• Line fisheries catch disposal record (PDF, 90KB)
• Net fisheries catch disposal record (PDF, 88KB)
• Trawl fishery (fin fish) catch disposal record (PDF, 77KB)
• East coast trawl fishery (M1, M2, T1, T2) catch disposal record (PDF, 77KB)

Charter fishery

• Commercial fishing tours logbook (PDF, 43KB)

Crab fisheries

• Crab fisheries logbook (PDF, 78KB)

Line fisheries

• Gulf of Carpentaria line fisheries logbook (PDF, 55KB)
• East coast line fin fish fisheries logbook (PDF, 29KB)
• Reef line multi-hook fin fish fishery (PDF, 75KB)

Harvest and collection fisheries

• Sea cucumber and trochus fisheries logbook (PDF, 120KB)
• Aquarium fish fishery logbook (PDF, 92KB)
• Marine shell collection logbook (PDF, 170KB)
• Coral, shell grit and star sand fisheries logbook (PDF, 33KB)
• Crayfish and rocklobster fishery logbook (PDF, 17KB)
• Beachworm, bloodworm and yabby logbook (PDF, 22KB)
• Juvenile eel fishery logbook (PDF, 39KB)
• Adult eel fishery logbook (PDF, 26KB)
• Broodstock and culture stock collection fishery logbook (PDF, 55KB)

Net fishery

• East coast net fishery logbook (PDF, 91KB)
• Gulf of Carpentaria net fisheries logbook (PDF, 89KB)

Shark and ray fisheries

• Shark and ray logbook (PDF, 57KB)

Threatened, endangered and protected animals

• Threatened, endangered and protected animal logbook (PDF, 64KB)

Trawl fisheries

• East coast trawl fishery logbook (PDF, 130KB)
• Gulf of Carpentaria fin fish trawl logbook (PDF, 24KB)
• Stout whiting trawl fishery logbook (PDF, 48KB)

Threatened, endangered and protected animal logbook

The threatened, endangered and protected animal (TEP) logbook (PDF, 64KB) is used to report interactions with protected animals. It replaces the species of conservation interest logbook.

Under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, commercial fishers must report all interactions with protected species to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. To do this, you must report all interactions in your TEP logbook.

Reporting these interactions is necessary to maintain Australian Government Wildlife Trade Operation (WTO) approvals, which allow certain Queensland fisheries to export seafood to international markets and are used in Australia to market sustainably sourced seafood.

The WTO approval also protects commercial fishers against prosecution for unintentional interactions with protected species. There are serious penalties for deliberate interactions or interactions that occur without a WTO approval.

Also consider...

• Phone 13 25 23 if you need a logbook.
• Search QFish to access commercial and recreational fishing catch data for free.
• To request data that isn't available on QFish, email a completed data request form (PDF, 130KB) to fishdatacoordinator@daf.qld.gov.au.
• To request a copy of logbook pages you've previously submitted to Fisheries Queensland, complete an application for copies of logbook pages (PDF, 45KB).
• To request a summary of logbook data that you've previously submitted to Fisheries Queensland, complete an application for logbook history search (PDF, 45KB)
• Access summary reports in your FishNet Secure account.