Victorian Fisheries Authority technical officer Julian Lucas with just a fraction of the 56,000 fingerlings of Murray cod released along a 52km stretch of the Broken River on Tuesday, February 6.
Noel O'Connor from Tatong Anglers Group releasing the fingerlings in a location chosen due to an abundance of protective habitat such as fallen logs and stands of reeds.
The scrub beside Casey Weir was thick with a cicada cacophony as four fishing enthusiasts arrived on Tuesday, February 6 with a tank filled with thousands of fish fingerlings set for release.
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Victorian Fisheries Authority had raised the 56,000 four-centimetre-long juvenile Murray cod at its Arcadia hatchery since they were spawned in mid-October in preparation for last week’s release.
VFA technical officer Julian Lucas managed the release with help from three members of the Tatong Anglers Group on a 52km journey along the Broken River.
Country News intercepted them for the fifth and final release.
Tatong Anglers Group fish stock coordinator Noel O’Connor said the operation represented fish licence fees at work and praised the effort of VFA in liaising with anglers such as himself to address local needs.
“We just let 5000 Macquarie perch go above Benalla and that’s the first time that stocking has taken place in that area, because they used to be prolific there,” Mr O’Connor said.
“But the change in habitats with weirs like Nillahcootie have had the fish in a situation where they are trapped and can’t move up.”
Despite there being fish ladders at Casey Weir and upstream at Benalla, the Mokoan uptake channel presented the next impediment to fish passage, preventing them from returning to their preferred rock-based stretches of the river.
Mr O’Connor said local anglers were reporting back with ‘incredible’ results.
“We have anglers who say: ‘every time we go out, we catch a Murray cod’ and that’s unbelievable,” he said.
“Years ago, it was pillage with drum nets and long lines and such and thank heavens the mentality has changed with the majority of people, and we have anglers — especially kids — catching them.
“People are returning them, but if you want to have a feed then by all means take it, there’s no dramas with that either.”
Noel O'Connor in his element, here releasing a one-metre Murray cod into Lake Benalla in 2019.
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Mr Lucas said the key factor behind successful fingerling rearing was monitoring water oxygen content.
“If the oxygen is good, then they do well,” Mr Lucas said.
“Cod are so good at adapting to poor water conditions — we know that most of our native fish species are — but not to the low level of the bad floodwaters we’ve had.
“Which is why this is so good, especially after fish have been wiped out.”
Fish are reared at the hatchery on a diet of plankton rich in Artemia, a microscopic brine shrimp, through a method of ‘grazing’.
“We don’t put the plankton into the ponds to feed them, but we put them in the ponds to eat all the plankton that we grow there before,” Mr Lucas said.
“Once the plankton has gone, we think they’re ready to harvest, which is why there is a variety of sizes.”
The fingerlings are spawned by providing large brood fish with aluminium frames covered with plastic fly-wire, which the fish treat as logs.
“That’s where they fight and have their little nests and where they do their business,” he said.
“Then we come in and check, and when we have a spawning, well, it’s all hands on deck.”
More than one-and-a-half million native recreational fish have been released by Victoria Fisheries Authority into the Broken River catchment since 2015.
The success of the yearly operation has been attributed to good communication.
Mr O’Connor said the releases were spread as widely as possible along a river instead of easily accessed bridges and this required the advice of local anglers.
“By spreading them out we get a much higher survival rate — that’s been proven,” he said.
“The feedback we have is that people are catching them in places they haven’t normally been seen.
“So that’s why we value that terrific working relationship with Vic Fisheries, because of the results.
“They always say that if we have any ideas or concerns to give them a ring.”
