Victorian boaters, fishers locked off the water – again

Under the reintroduced Stage 4 “circuit-breaker” restrictions affecting the entire state, not just metropolitan Melbourne, face masks outside of the home are again mandatory, and people are restricted to a 5km circle from their home.

However, with only two hours a day permitted for recreation, those lucky enough to be the right distance from a boat ramp or body of water won’t have enough time to make the trip worthwhile.

Throughout the state, on-water recreational activities were cancelled. Competitors in the national Bass Pro season opener at Blue Rock Dam in the state’s east this weekend were notified by text message yesterday afternoon that the event had been cancelled.

The bass fishers, on the water yesterday for a practise session and some coming from as far away as Queensland, scrambled to get their boats off the water and across borders before they closed.

Anyone in Victoria who is able to get near the water can only be with one other person.

Meanwhile, new-boat showrooms and marine service centres will remain closed for the next five days after they were again deemed non-essential services under the harsher restrictions.

The renewed blow, just as dealers are struggling to backfill a boom in new-boat sales, comes as the Boating Industry Association of Victoria announced the severe supply restrictions meant this year’s Melbourne International Boat Show would not go ahead.

Early last year Melbourne’s boating and fishing community was hit with almost two months of stay-at-home bans.

A second wave of COVID-19 infections sparked another lockdown later in the year, although fishing and boating were allowed under the less-severe restrictions.

The restrictions lift on Thursday if the latest COVID-19 outbreak, believed to be the more infectious British variant, is classed as contained.