Jetties are the heart of local coastal communities, providing accessible fishing for everyone and essential nearshore habitat for a range of important fish species.
In good news for fishers, numerous jetties around WA will receive some love, following the Government’s recent budget announcement.
From one of the Metro’s most popular land-based fishing spots at Ammo Jetty, to the Mount Henry Jetty in the Canning River and the Bunbury fishing platform that caters for fishers with mobility issues – these are just a few landmarks set to receive millions of dollars in improvements for fishers to utilise and enjoy.
To help us advocate for more and better jetties, please take a couple of minutes to take our jetty survey below. We want to know what jetties and platforms are most important to you and what makes a good jetty. Everyone who completes the survey will go in the draw to win a Shimano Sienna 2500 flick rod and reel combo that is perfect for their favourite fishing jetty!
Some of the jetties the Government has committed to investing in include:
- Ammo Jetty – $20 million in total to be injected into completing the design and construction of a new jetty, which will include a 50-metre long, three-metre-wide T-head, which will double the current fishing space in the deeper water at the end of the jetty to the benefit of fishers. Recfishwest is on the Ammo Jetty Working Group and has had input into the design of this one to ensure it is best optimised for fishing.
- Mount Henry Jetty – $1 million to replace the existing jetty
- Bunbury fishing platform – The Government has set aside $4 million for a new fishing platform in Bunbury following the closure of the Bunbury Service Jetty.
- Extension of the northern breakwater at Jurien Bay Boat Harbour – $17.5 million will be invested on improving water quality at the marina, mitigating against the fish kills in the harbour and opening up more fishing opportunities off the extended rock wall.
In addition to the measures to support jetties announced in the budget, the Government also recently committed $5 million to build a new small boat facility to replace the defunct Taylor Street Jetty in Esperance. The plan is for the currently closed jetty to be demolished and replaced with a 70m pontoon jetty, with a 50m wing for use by the Port of Esperance, and a 20m section open to the community (as pictured below).
A new breakwater spur will also help enable year-round access as it should protect the area during storm events, allowing fishers to wet a line more easily and comfortably.
We welcome these commitments from the Government, but we want to see more!
The pleasure and value jetties provide is priceless and every coastal town or those located next to an estuary deserves a town jetty for local and visiting fishers. Jetties are the first places people learn to fish and they offer everyone the opportunity to access deeper water and a wider variety of species than is usually available from shore.
On behalf our cast of 700,000 recreational fishers, Recfishwest will continue to advocate for investments in fishing infrastructure such as jetties to boost land-based fishing access and fishing experiences.