29.9KG BARRA,and 30.3KG BARRA- Lake Awoonga

[Barraless]

Sorry but only as a side note to this conversation


I have been at Bedford Weir when it spilled and some fished died but a lot of fish survived. The amount of fish trying to get downstream was incredible I saw guys cathing them with their hands in ankle deep water. Gave me a huge appreciation for the fish and their power.

[nb83]

There is one thing that i know sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory but I was in a tackle shop the other day and they were showing a fishing video about fish conservation. Basically the narrator on the video stated the following:

The fisheries department supports the kill of big barra because there are confirmed stats to show that the more big barra there are in the impoundments the less tilapia. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of fisheries jobs (and funding) is reliant on the "problem" of tilapia in our impoundments NOT going away.

I wish i had of taken more notice of the video but i have not even thought about it again until now. It went on to be very critical of the misinformation that has been spread etc.

Anyway, this is not necessarily my view but it is something to think about???

[Feral]

Our group got a couple of 1m plus Barra at Awoonga in November, one 130cm. They tasted just fine. Just fillet them properly and no problems (remove all fat)

[McCod]

Our group got a couple of 1m plus Barra at Awoonga in November, one 130cm. They tasted just fine. Just fillet them properly and no problems (remove all fat)

Flip side to this is it depends on your taste buds been there tried the big ones and they tast very bad!! Grey yukky flesh with more fat than KFC! IMO
Bit like eating turnips or brussel sprouts... some love em and others will throw up

[-Henno-]

My personal opinion about taking big girls from Awoonga is this. More effort should be put into keeping the big girls alive when out of the water. This requires people to have seriously large live wells in their boats with great aeration and filtering maybe even a cooling system. Then they simply drive to Agnes Water or Baffle creek and let them go up in the fresher parts. They would then start to breed and Mark would have a lovely time catching all their children and eating them!!!!

[caloundra]

we were up at awoonga last week fished for 4 days landing only 1 barra 77cm
and it tasted GREAT after filleting the fish we let the fillets soak in salty water with a dash of vineger for a few hours then crumed them YUMM!


Daniel
PS I heard that the large barra eat alot of young barra??

[TinarooTriumph]

Interesting thread...

If you think Barra over a metre taste good, you obviously eat fairly poor food. No matter what Impoundment she came from, they all taste foul. I have tried close to every method possible with one large fish which we unfortunately had to kill a few months ago, and it's near impossible to make the meat 20% edible.

Really starting to notice how much of an effect the 2006 Barra Bash had on Tinaroo... The last few trips we are averaging 1 or 2 fairly solid fish a trip, which is pretty poor. We are having to work incredibly hard for our fish, and it's becoming very obvious that if the Cull Crap is not stopped soon, Tinaroo will become a lowly populated Barra Impoundment, and the Tilapia will take ownership of the place. The more of you that kick and scream about the Barra Bash like I do will see the event changed to C&R, or even banned...

[Whitto]

I agree Trev, Some bloke named Rex Grunt or Punt or Stunt once said, Some fish are too good to catch once, Put the big girls back Im told they are very bland in taste anyway, Theres only one reason I target Barra and thats the chase and the battle, but each to their own, Cheers Whitto

[robyoung2]

Now, approx 4 yrs on from the release of those fish, we are faced with a fishery with 4 new year classes of much smaller barramundi, varying in size from say 1 kg onwards with a strong showing around the 3 to 5 kg mark. Any given afternoon on Awoonga can see 10 or 12 of those smaller barra caught in similar areas to where we find the larger fish. The upcoming population of these smaller barra in Awoonga is very likely to be some of the better stocking results from any previous releases. There is no lack of smaller fish.

So why would it be that we have a mass availability of 1 to 6 kg barra in a fishery that is dominated by 20 kg fish?!?!?!!??! There is no supportive evidence at Awoonga of the larger fish being detrimental to the fishery. I noted in an above post that releasing bigger fingerlings in Tinaroo(250-300mm fish) has resulted in many fish now being caught from that lake. To barra 6kg and above barramundi, 250-300mm of almost any fish species is a great size for a snack. Is it possible that there may be other reasons why stockings of smaller fingerlings in Tinaroo wasn't successful?

The bigger a barra grows, the less likely he/she is interested in eating a so called 'fingerling'!

A 20 plus kg barra is capable of eating a 5 kg barra, and a 5 kg barra is capable of eating a 1 kg barra, and that 1 kg barra is very likely to be capable of eating a 100mm fingerling and that 100mm fingerling is capable of eating a newly stocked 50mm fingerling,,,,,so,,,,AT WHAT POINT DO WE ACTUALLY DEFEAT THE PURPOSE OF STOCKING !!?!?!?!


Feedback appreciated.
Johnny M
Lake Awoonga Barra Fishing Charters

Abso-bloody-lootly!!
The biggest of the Brra aren't likely to chase the fingerlings, kill all the little barra , before it's too late!

Seriously though, and please excuse the igranence, wouldn' you almost expect to find a couple dead bludgers on a busy weekend floating around? No matter just how dedicated the fishermen/ladies might be?

I mean aside from the arguement of even if the fish ought to be returned or not, and given that all agree they should..

This lake it seems is stocked to the back teeth with barra, and I assumed is rather well patronised these days, especially now at holiday time, mid summer, fine weather, etc etc..

The thread mentions a coupld dead fish floating in the water, and (as I siad please excuse the ignorance) but how do we assume they were killed by care-lessness? Or even malicousness?
When even the greatest care is used, mortality occurs right? So with all the fish caught, I'd expect that if each and every person did their utmost to presevre each one alive, some just aren't going to make it. maybe hooked too deep, accidentally injured, maybe they had high colestrol levels (or some kind of fishey ill-health at any rate, I mean fish do get sicknesses too)

Some fish just get plain knocked up beyond the point of being returned to the water with 100% (for all intents and purposes) success of living. especially if they were played out on lighter line than usual. Hell, taken to extremes, if this kind of thinking were to run rampant, people will be astocised for fishing sport class line classes, because it's too critical to the fish's survival rate once released. Fair enough to hold such personal views and honor them, but it'd become a little nazi like if the thinking went that far..

I'm not saying kill all the fish, just saying that to see some dead fish floating in a very popular fishery at a very busy time of year.... might just be a little quick out the gate to assume much evil has been committed..they could have been released with the utmost care and attention, just one of them things. well "two" of them things..

just my thoughts. as I siad, I'm completely igrant on the matter of the dams per sae. Igrant that is except to say I emailed the people at that dama while ago, just out of curiousity, asking them if it really was the ranger's advice to remove the big barra.
My email wasn't working properly, so they phoned me back (otherwise I'd post their reply).
They told me the dam is sustaining very well, a new and thorough survey of the dam's food and stock ratios will be conducted in feb/march this year. They expect reccomemdations wil be to even further increase the stocking rate, because the fish haven't had any ill-effect on cannibalisation or starvation and subsequent limiting of growth rates. In short, the whole system is going a-ok, and no advice (apaprt from some local rumoring and fighting) exists to remove any fish apart from what's desired and legal to do so by people as they please.

I looked into it rather deeply, not because I fish the spot, but just curious. Because the trout stocking in Little Pine Laggon, Tasmania suffered from overstocking, and in the end the lake was so infested with insnaely small trout, the advise was you had to remove the trout as you caught them. problem is, what was once a very healthy pond of good quality trout, had become so pathetic, nobody was even fishing it so as to remove the problematic overstocked fish.
the decline happened really quickly too.

I'm not saying this can, will, or even could happen with barramundi at Awwonga dam. It's just something I knew of, and became interested in . The upshot it, no such problem is happening. that is according to the nice lady that phone me with the info I just passed on.

cheers
rob

ps. Now that's said, I'm available pretty much any day or days if anyone wants to take me and see this place
Just jokin..

[-Henno-]

Actually Rob I agree wholeheartedly with your idea/theory. Lots of guys in here tend to get on the high horse about cruelty or overkilling etc. I recently got taken to task by a guy who is obviously wealthy enough to afford to go marlin fishing for daring to ask about buying a second hand epirb.

In a way I suppose it is a good thing, it shows that guys in here really are into preserving the fish stocks and doing thing safely. It just gets to the point where you daren't open your mouth in case somebody jumps down it.

Regarding fish mortality during a busy holiday time at Awoonga there is a distinct possibility you are right. The dead fish seen may have had every attempt to keep them alive made for them but just died anyway. It fits neatly into the category of 'shit happens'. If you saw a boat land a metre or so barra and rip out the hooks and chuck it back with no attempt at swimming it you'd have every right to board their boat and stick a gaff through the mongrels. So there you go, I can be a bit of a nazi myself.

I'll give ya a frinstance. I here that guys that dive a spot off the tweed river on a regular basis that is a popular marlin/pelagic/everything ground have seen the bottom littered with the dead carcasses of unsuccessfully released marlin at times. Old Rexy is guilty of it himself, I distinctly remember one episode where he released a fish and said the old 'And off he goes' bit and 30 seconds later you see it floating belly up entering the shot over his shoulder behind him.

Things that do make me a bit cranky though is the comps that encourage fish kills, now its a whole bag of worms talking about weigh ins at a put and take fishery but when I heard of 79 mangrove jack being taken out of one creek during a comp that boiled my blood! I live there and fish there and use that creek as a source of food for me and my wife. If the gold coast can organise such a successful catch and release comp for the humble flat head why not do it with jacks or anything?

My two bobs.

Henno


ps, anybody got a second hand epirb?

[robyoung2]

Wow 79! That's savage.

That diving tale you mentioned it kinda what I was thinking of, and that example rexy made of the fish floating away behind him. thing is, I've released a fish once that swum away as if it had the devil behind it, but a short while later it floated up. I imagine it must happen a bit.

cheers
rob

[-Henno-]

yeah mate it does, you can be as green as a leprechaun's bum and it will happen. The fact is our form of recreation can do this sometimes. The biggest flattie I ever got put up a massive fight on 4lb line and I spent ages reviving her and she swam off. The next day I was back there after work and some people were gathered round her poor old dead bod. One woman said "What a waste, who would catch such a big fish and just let it die, at least they could have kept it and eaten it!"

I pointed out that 76cm flathead were illegal to keep in this state as they are too big and that it was in fact me that caught her and I had spent over 30 minutes walking her round in the shallows trying to revive her. She apologised and was just ignorant but if I had not been there to defend myself I would have been the evil wasteful bastard.