Counts by divers have shown a rapid rise in coral trout populations on shallow reefs of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park closed to fishing in 2004, but the deeper line-fishing grounds (>20m) have been inaccessible to fish biologists until the development of baited remote underwater video stations (BRUVS™). Here we summarise pair-wise comparisons of inter-reef "shoal grounds", closed and open to line-fishing, in terms of abundance and lengths of prized sportfish, bycatch and unfished species. The results of paired "fished-unfished" contrasts all depended on the context of microhabitat type, proximity to fishing ports and species vulnerability to line-fishing. On diffuse, low-relief grounds off Townsville prized target species were actually less abundant in zones closed to fishing. On discrete sunken banks of the Capricorn plateau closed to fishing there were about twice as many prized species, and they were larger than conspecifics on fished banks. A positive effect of closure to fishing around the deep bases of reefs in the Pompeys, Swains and Capricorn- Bunkers was visible only in coral-dominated microhabitats. Reef sharks were consistently more abundant in zones closed to fishing. These differences have been communicated with novel point-and-click, map-based BRUVS footage and data summaries on the "e-Atlas", using Google “Earth” and YouTube. This allows the public to make independent conclusions about the local effects of marine protected areas
