Tilapia Kill off?

[snagking]

Hey guys,
Today some mates and myself went for a fish at a freshwater lake (carindale) near his place and to our dismay caught several large tilapia (see reports) and saw schools of over 100 go swimming past.
Naturally we want to kill these pests, so what is the easiest way to get em? net em or something?
any help is appreciated.

[Cammy]

Grab bout 3 castnets, 1 for each mate and go casting along the banks u get heaps.

Cam

[Luc]

Netting is a good option to thin them down but you're unlikely to remove all of them.

As it's freshwater and netting is generally not allowed, you'd have to approach both DPI&F for permission and whoever owns / controls the land where the lake is to get their support.

The other alternative is tp poison the water with something like rotenone which only affects fish. Again you'd need support/permission as per netting.

Luc

[oldboot]

Tell some asians they are there and easy to catch;D .

They farm them over there.

cheers

[snagking]

So i guess cast nets are out of the question, so what would be the best way to target them, just bread, have more then one hook on a line?

thanks for the info already :)

[FNQCairns]

Thin line, medium length hook under a float (stick or other natural type) near structure and at 1/2 to 2/3 depth. garden worms, devon, chicken, anthing that stays on long enough to promote a bite.

cheers fnq

Ps good eating!! but illegal to transport and as above you will not even make a dent in the population, simply allow the uncaught others in the school/territory to grow and breed that bit better, they will hold same ecological response to recreational fishing as all other species do.

[aussiebasser]

Grab bout 3 castnets, 1 for each mate and go casting along the banks u get heaps.

Cam

Cam, cast nets are illegal in fresh water in Queensland.

[oldboot]

Ther are lots of things you can do in the fresh that you can not do in tidal waters.... check out the regs.

you can run set lines

variuos traps as specified

up to 4 lines.

If you and your mates were down there every afternoon... you might not wipe em out, but you may knock the population arround.

cheers

[snagking]

ok, sweet thanks guys.

[snagking]

Well, thanks guys, it seems a couple ausfishers have already put there hands up, and I have sent the council an email.

[Jomaweb]

The other alternative is tp poison the water with something like rotenone which only affects fish. Again you'd need support/permission as per netting.
Luc


poison the water, are you a mad man ? why kill the fish your trying to survive ? that will do nothing but stuff up the whole system. Netting is the only option as you can release anything that is not Tilapia. I think the communities should hold fishing comps for Tilapia. If the local tackle shops sponsored a few cheap rods I'm sure every young kid will be out giving them a flogging. That is the sort of thing we need to do. For a couple of hundred bucks the populations would be drastically reduced, especially if they were held a few times a year. Go and organise something like this, strange that I was seriously considering this the other day for my local area. Letting them go is only making things worse.

[Jomaweb]

Just imagine if the DPI or local/state government got involved and sponsored a regional prizes, I can already imagine the whole state fishing for Tilapia, would clean out millions and millions I reckon.

[oldboot]

there are already a couple of localised programes targeting both carp and talapia.

I recon it would be a great thing to have a national pest fish day like clean up australia day.

I recon a 44 gallon drum with a big hobart mincer mounted on it could come into the equasion to finishe the job, then the remains could be doug into the garden beds or carted away for further processing.

Lots of people will try and tell you you cant make significant impacts on pest spicies. For sure it may not be possible to achieve a one time solution, but concerted effort can impact heavily on a spicies and allow natives to get the upper hand, but it needs to be concerted.

for example
a mate of mine had a significant problem with toads arround his property 20 acres or so.....If you ran a sprinkler and a spotlight on his back house lawn you would see 20 or so toads in under an hour.

He declared a fatwa on toads....he and his wife and 4 kids went out with torches very regularly and set traps like sprinkler and spotlight, wet sacks and sheets of corro for over a year.
It is very rare to see a toad at his place these days.

cheers

[Jomaweb]

there might already be things like this happening here and there, but I don't think it is enough. like you said even one day like a clean up day, and as you also said your friend rid his place of toads, even if the population is not eradicated it will certainly feel the impact and it might just allow other fish to gain an upper hand.

[aussiebasser]

With Tilapia breeding rates, a fishing competition, with rod and reel will make very little impact. Netting will not remove all the fish, and you only need to leave a couple to breed again. Last year DPI & F poisoned a pond in Ipswich to remove Tilapia. Yes the poison does kill everything with gills in the pond. You then need to restock it with the required species, and hope that Tilapia don't reappear. The likelyhood of any edible species being stocked into Minipini would be slight. If you are fishing for sport only, make the most of the Tilapia.

[oldboot]

I have to agree that a one off effort is unlikely to have a long term effect, but if there was a one time hit followed up by regular fishing you might just knock them arround.
Particularly if there was something in the waterway that would predate on the fry.

Some bass perhaps.

cheers

[snagking]

well, there are quite large mullet in minnippi, so if you were to put in an aggressive native, they would have plenty to eat.

[Jomaweb]

but I guess by everyone sitting around saying it can't be done, it wont work, that's certainly reducing their populations. This is the problem, people are so pessimistic, no one wants to do anything about this sort of thing, it is always someone else's problem. WAKE UP ! you can't tell me that it is going to have no effect. It is not only Minipini that is being plagued by this rodent. Our waterways have been flogged by this species, we fish for mudcod to target barra in the season and they have become very sparce to find, but i dont have to lecture you on how they are impacting. All im saying is people have to stop saying it can't be done, get off ya backsides and help in doing something about it. You can't tell me that freshwater netting would be peanilised by hunting Tilapia, every fisheries inspector has a brain in their head and also the ability to enforce the law to a degree they see fit. As far as im concerned if they pulled me up and i had a pile of dead Tilapia that they could see was my target they would have no issue.

[snagking]

yeah, were going down again tuesday, maybe even tommorow, and plan on takeing a landing net, hopeing we can even scoop 10 out in one go, and I've emailed the council asking for permission to use my net on them.

[Luc]

Jomaweb, no I'm not a madman.

A question was asked and I provided some information. As Ausiebasser has said, poisoning has been done before. In the right circumstances it's an appropriate solution.

In the long run, netting and particularly fishing will have little effect of tilapia populations. Stocking with appropriate natives (bass, goldens, cod) may help to thin down the tilapia population but their rapid breeding and general feeding habits will seen them survive quite well.

Long term, genetic control (as per the daughterless carp) may provide an answer but IMO, tilapia like cane toads, ferals cats goats etc..., are here to stay.

Luc

[aussiebasser]

but I guess by everyone sitting around saying it can't be done, it wont work, that's certainly reducing their populations. This is the problem, people are so pessimistic, no one wants to do anything about this sort of thing, it is always someone else's problem. WAKE UP ! you can't tell me that it is going to have no effect. It is not only Minipini that is being plagued by this rodent. Our waterways have been flogged by this species, we fish for mudcod to target barra in the season and they have become very sparce to find, but i dont have to lecture you on how they are impacting. All im saying is people have to stop saying it can't be done, get off ya backsides and help in doing something about it. You can't tell me that freshwater netting would be peanilised by hunting Tilapia, every fisheries inspector has a brain in their head and also the ability to enforce the law to a degree they see fit. As far as im concerned if they pulled me up and i had a pile of dead Tilapia that they could see was my target they would have no issue.

Wonderful ideals Jomaweb. Have you been to Minipini? You canot access the whole pond due to weed. You can fish and net all you like, but if you leave one pair, within 6 months they will be back to the same population you have now. You call me pessimistic and accuse me of thinking this is someone elses problem. You don't know me, and you certainly don't know what I do for the fishery. I have spoken to the authorities, OFTEN, about this problem. Do you have any idea what other species you could kill by indescriminate netting? Obviously not. Go fish for them, have some fun, you can fool yourself that your effort is making a difference. While you are at it, grab a golf club and hit every cane toad you see on the head. Let me know when you've killed them all.

[snagking]

I guess I touched on a fairly debated topic :)

I'm sure I read somewhere that there was some native fish that ate tilapia and thrived off it in certain places....

[oldboot]

From what I have read and heard, quite a few native fish will happily take talapia and carp.

If there are no predators in the pond of course the talapia will be very hard to controll.

If there is a native predator in numbers in the pond and some concerted effort is made to remove as many larger specimins the chances of sucess would be reasonable in a closed system such as this.

a few bass perhaps the odd mangrove jack... they will all take small fish and fry... but they wont take on a full grown fish.

There are quite a number of sucessfull irradication stories, but the problem is that less and less are governments prepared to make concerted efforts to controll pests unless thay have some sort of catistrophic out come like fire ants.

Take lantanna... for decades it was a declared weed....in recent times it has been downgraded...... more than a few argue this is because a large portion of lantanna is on government land....while they were happy for land owners to be forced to bear the cost of irradication....the government wasn;t all that keen to clean up its own back yard.
Lantanna is relativley easy to irradicate..a variety of things will knock it down.

In this case I do not think drag netting is viable... but scoop netting and line fishing may have an impact.

Sdcoop netting is permisable under the fresh water regulations...as long as the net is no bigger than 1m in any dimension, the handle is no longer than 2.5m and the mesh is no smaller than 25mm.

funnel traps such as operahouse traps are also permisable.

cheers

[snagking]

Ok thanks oldboot, tommorrow when we go down we will bring some scoop thing.:)

[tailorboi99]

If we take down some traps they'll get turtles inside them aswell, so maybe not such a good idea eh?

[oldboot]

yeh you have to leave the turthes alone.......Unless you are a person of indegenous decent......then they are good tucker;D .

Those crusty buggers can reach plague proportions too....watch en they bite.

cheers

[snagking]

Yeah, we've always tried not to catch the turtles :)
Annoying buggers they are, the only way to unhook them is to flip em on there back and put your fingers in there mouth :O

[oldboot]

Pliers chaps... don't you have pliers.


As the bloke on the Rapala video says......" Pliyerrs...Out".

Serioulsy jaycar have some nice small stanless pliers that are excelent for small(ish) fish.

There is a matching side cutters that are good for line too.

I supose those "crunchy meat pies" would have a go at baby talapia... given a chance

cheers

[snagking]

yeah, we use pliers when they are deep down there gob, but if the hooks just lightly in i just pop it out :)

[tailorboi99]

Ima go drop some pots down with mullet in it soon see what I get :p

Tom

[2manylures]

I have to agree that a one off effort is unlikely to have a long term effect, but if there was a one time hit followed up by regular fishing you might just knock them arround.
Particularly if there was something in the waterway that would predate on the fry.

Some bass perhaps.

cheers

Silver Perch might be another good alternative.

Although I'm unaware of any scientific research or studies & solely going on observations over 20 yrs, carp numbers in the Murray river and some of it's southern tributaries have dwindled dramatically whilst Silver Perch populations have flourished to the point of being pests themdelves to anglers.

OLDBOOT, Your signature: "A Zero on its own is nothing. " Zero is the most important piece of numerical history. It's also the most significant numeral!

A useless piece of information:D:D:D

[oldboot]

My tag line is a deep and meaningffull matamatical joke that problay goes back to the Samerians......and you will only appreacite the joke in this comment if you know your matamatical history;D .

cheers

[Dunkxx]

Native fish ar also a good natural population control measure. If netting and other efforts are made, stocking barra can keep the tilapa down. Also, modifying fish barriers (dams, wiers ect) promotes upstream/downstream movement to get natives up in areas dominated by tilapia.
cheers
dunks

[oldboot]

In this case it is an isolated lake... which is both good and bad.

Unfortunately I don't think stocking barra would be allowed this far south, so other fresh tolerant spicies would have to be considered.

Auastalian Bass are suposed to belong here and likewise mangrove jack, I don't know that bream would tolerate full fresh.
i don't hnow what other natives would be viable... and what other pests there are there.

I know there used to be sord tails, guppies in the system and the likleyhoog of mosquito fish is pretty good.

If course the whole isolation thing goes pear shaped when this are floods in heavy rain....not sure how often this happens since this " parkland" was redeveloped form degraded scrub and swamp.

Like may of these "parklands" it is realy a landscaped floodway.

cheers

[jareyjareyjareyjarey]

anyhoo. Snagking and co. go down there an catch and remove some tilapia. if you dont hurt the population that much at least you will have a bit of fun. and thats what its all about.

[aussiebasser]

If we take down some traps they'll get turtles inside them aswell, so maybe not such a good idea eh?


You're right Tom. Normal crap pots will catch and kill turtles. That's why they are not permitted in fresh water. Check on the DPI & F site. There are some regulations about the size of the openings on fresh water traps. Any traps with openings large enough for an adult Tilapia will probably be too big to meet the regulations.

[tailorboi99]

Ok Thanks Aussiebasser.

Tom

[tailorboi99]

The first kill off was today,
check the Freshwater Reports section.

Tom

[snagking]

Seems there are some other species in there as well, some sort of bream or something, and some other on (tailorboi knows the names :))

[tailorboi99]

Yeah there were some Gourami's and something related to 'Black bream'.

Tom,

[Jungle Jim]

i see you guys have since been down there and caught a few again.(freshwater reports) From the photos on the report it looks like the you guys had a ball.


I thought the ZERO thing was simply the quantity of a given unit. That quantity needs to precede a unit and therefore is nothing on it’s own.
Maybe I’m wrong....i ain't the brightest ;D

JIM

[snagking]

Here's a monster we pulled out on saturday.
Got about 15 small ones as well.

went 45cm to the very end.

[tailorboi99]

Ahhh that was huge,

Tom