Barra now in Hazelwood pondage!

[Roverlord off road spares]

It's OFFICIAL...1600 Barramundi have now been stocked into Hazelwood Pondage near Morwell. For those aren't familiar with this waterway, it's the cooling pond for Hazelwood Power Station and right now, the water temp at the ramp is a balmy 28 degrees C. Talking Fishing hosts David Kramer & Adam Ring were joined by the boys from Tackle World Sale and Morwell to help stock the fish. These fish are part of a six month trial to observe the fishes movement, condition and edibility and during that 6 months, the Pondage has been declared closed to all forms of fishing while the trial fish are allowed to settle and be monitored. If all is successful, there will be a major stocking and the Pondage will soon become home to the only recreational barramundi fishery in Southern Australia. A big thanks goes out to David Kramer as head of the Futurefish Foundation who have done all the science and ground work to get this fishery to this stage. Barra in Victoria...bring it on!


Barramundi in Hazelwood Pondage

Local News 20/04/2016 From the office of Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford

Barramundi will be stocked in Gippsland for the first time with the first batch of 1600 barramundi into Hazelwood Pondage today.
This is another significant milestone for the Andrews Labor Government in delivering its Target One Million plan to grow recreational fishing.
The release is a key step in the development of this new fishery, following successful tank-based acclimatisation trials which indicated the species could survive in pondage water.
Barramundi are usually only found in northern Australia, however the unusually warm water in the pondage may provide Victorian anglers with the chance to cast a line for the iconic species much closer to home.
Three size classes of barramundi were released today, consisting of 1000 fingerlings at 5cm, 500 fish at 10cm and 100 larger barramundi measuring 30cm.
Fifteen of the larger fish carry acoustic tags to track their movements so more can be learned about their behaviour and preferred habitats.
Several listening stations have been positioned throughout the pondage and will monitor tagged fish movements and log water temperatures.
To optimise the stocking trial and fish movement investigation, the pondage will be closed to all recreational fishing for six months.
This will allow barramundi growth rates, diet composition, flesh quality and aggregation patterns to be studied without active fishing pressure.
Fisheries Victoria, recreational anglers and other project partner organisations that comprise the Barramundi Working Group will then consider the results of the stocking trial and, pending the results, progress plans to formally open the fishery in consultation with other recreational users.
Boosting participation in recreational fishing is the primary aim of the Labor Government’s Target One Million plan, which aims to increase angler numbers to one million by 2020 and get more people fishing, more often.



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[roverrescue]

Now that will be interesting!
Min temps of 22 - check
Forage fish (cichlids talapia etc) - check
Releasing 5cm 10cm and bigger barra - check

You Victorians may just be onto a winner!

Hopefully the forage fish can breed fast enough to keep up with the hungry mouths to feed

S

[Bearman]

Barra with overcoats on - that will be interesting!!!!

[Homestar]

That's good timing, how long before they decommission Hazelwood power station...

And what have they done with the 4,000,000 carp that live in there...

And how many people from Churchill and Morwell will actually take notice of the 'no fishing' signs? They'll be dynamite going off everywhere Saturday night...

[roverrescue]

4mill carp won't stand a chance once old man Barry gets his funk on...

One of my favourite Barra stories was using 2kg (yes kg not pound) bully mullet for livies in the ord below Wyndham about a hundred years ago... Only problem was biggest hooks I had were 9/0 ... Not enough clearance for the pointy bit... After three or four scaled mullet came back we finally hooked a Barra who promptly spooled my poor little bait caster giving a half arsed head shake on her way out the door....

I'm getting twitchy thinking of 5 years time with meteries cruising the shallows boofing carp! Maybe we need to let Carp into the qld Barra dams

Steve

[Chops]

hehe,,, this could prove interesting,,, I might get to land a Barra in Vic before I get to land one in QLD

[Roverlord off road spares]

Some footage of Hazelwwod throughout this show,

Talking Fishing