Brisbane River Perch

[whichway]

Hi

From today's Sunday mail, page 7:

"A fish native to the Brisbane River has returned in good numbers 40 years after being forced out by pollution.
The fish known locally as the Brisbane River perch has largely been missing from the City reaches of the river since the 1960s.
The perch lives in rivers and estuaries from Rockhampton to Brisbane bit is remembered for being caught in huge quantities in the Brisbane River in the 1960s.
David Bateman .. said "You could catch them at Mowbray Park or New Farm and .. fill a sugar bag..."

Has anyone caught one of these.
They don't sound like Bass, as they are being caught in the saltwater and up as far as Rocky.
Do they have any other name?

Whichway

[GAFYM]

Whichway,
Can remember when i was a kid we used to catch them by the hundreds.
Dad used to call them "Moses Perch" and sugar bag full was a bad night.
That is not all that has come back.
Have been catching flathead and whiting on the Corso at Yeronga, on garden worms, unknown when we were kids living there.
Friday, caught several nice Bream while crabbing at West End.
The sharks have all come back into the river as well so something for the better is happening.

Cheers GAFYM

[kingtin]

Seems like the grunter are coming back too:D

[cqfreshie]

:D Great news for Brizzy .... :-/ a pitty the Rocky City Council and other Councils in the Fitzroy system didn't do the same.

Fitzroy River ...... sewer of Capricornia. Every river flowing into it is a sewer for it's own area. What a mess.

:-[ No cheers here.

[Remo]

I lived in New Farm for most of my Life and we fished the river a lot as kids. it was true that we would catch a a 60 litre esky full of these purple/pinky things called river perch. They actually look like a small jew. But when caught they open their mouth a come straight to the surface, then just be coming a dead weight no real fight in them and they were normally caught at night.

Good to see them back in the river

Cheers Ray

[DaMaGe]

Hopefully the Brisbane River is cleaning up and we should see a return of healthy fish in the system, it is quite exciting news really and hopefully we can expect some great things to come.

[Chuckmeister]

It's great news and reading on further in the Courier Mail it seemed as though there was a good investment in the future of the river's health. Let's hope all goverment bodies take it seriously.

[Captain_Zero]

Has anyone got a photo. It would be interesting to see what they look like.

Regards

Chris

[outsiderskip]

i used to live near mowbray park and fished it quiet often
best catches were always made at easter and dug rock worms for bait
Catches of 50-100were common with a few soapies thrown in

pete

[fisher28]

hi guys,the river is definately cleaning up.i thought that youse might find this interesting,its a timeline with some of the changes that have been made to the river,hope it works.
http://www.coastal.crc.org.au/pdf/HistoricalCoastlines/App_3_Timeline_BrisbaneRiver.pdf
theres some major impact there and shows why the fish species found can vary so much,please let me know if it works.

[fishytales]

I lived in New Farm for most of my Life and we fished the river a lot as kids. it was true that we would catch a a 60 litre esky full of these purple/pinky things called river perch. They actually look like a small jew. But when caught they open their mouth a come straight to the surface, then just be coming a dead weight no real fight in them and they were normally caught at night.

Good to see them back in the river

Cheers Ray


You are right Ray.
They do look a lot like a smallish school jew, and about 15 years back I caught about 50 of them in a couple of hours in the Brisbane River near Pinkenba at night.I actually thought they were Jewies for a while until some old fellow put me straight. I took a couple home for a feed, and they were not too bad on the chew either.From memory they have a bit of a pointy head to them as well.

Chris

[shayned]

Are they like the putty nose perch you sometimes see in the Pine River???

[shayned]

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:uvIs0hOi78FpYM:http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/faunabase/_images/Polydactylus_multiradiatus.jpg (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/faunabase/_images/Polydactylus_multiradiatus.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/faunabase/_asp_bin/MapITcx.asp%3Fd%3DFishes%26t%3DPolydactylus%2520mu ltiradiatus&h=199&w=279&sz=14&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=uvIs0hOi78FpYM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=114&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPolydactylus%2Bmultiradiatus%26hl%3De n%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG)Anything like this????

[shayned]

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:uvIs0hOi78FpYM:http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/faunabase/_images/Polydactylus_multiradiatus.jpg

[fisher28]

shayned,those fish are in the brisbane river as well,but they are not the ones in this discussion.they look like a scale down jew and are very slippery.

[Remo]

fishr28 is correct they are like a miniture school jew, pinky to purple top and a lttle slimy.

Ray

[Matt_Campbell]

Is this what they're talking about?

[SWANY22]

Lucky they came back at all with that many people keeping so many fish thank god times have changed for the better

[BrandonH]

Yep just like a little jewie;) Grants has it listed as a river pearch.. I have never caught them in the Brisbane river but have caught Heaps of them at the mouth of cabbage tree creek during this time of year.. Never took one home to eat, only ever got them to about 30cms long:-/

cheers
Brandon...

[blu]

Up this way (Bundaberg) we call them snubby nose perch