Barra Sizes in Monduran

[robersl]

Hi All just a few Questons on the Barra in monduran and maybe Awoonga, I notice most fish caught at monduran seem to be 80-120cm ,however i know in the N/T you get the smaller rats coming into the system from the waterholes into the salt when the get bigger to breed , i know the dam barra do not breed and seem to gorge themself on food in the dams and grow at a great rate
1.How many fish get released into monduran each year and do the get released in different areas
2.does anyone get the smaller fish in monduran(not that i want to just do not hear of them)
3. do the finglings survive that are put in there or do the bigger barra eat most of them before they have a chance
4.What size are the finglings that are released and if they are released at a bigger size would more survive.

Just throwing this out there as i curious and had noticed a distinct lack of reports of smaller fish(p.s i have been watchingbarra dvd's all afternoon and noticed a lot of small barra getting caought in billabongs ect)
And if this has been asked before sorry

Shane

[BR65]

The IBD is biteing I reckon, starts with a smal itch, before you know it its a massive rash!
Q1 Steve B is a member of Masa and would be the most qualified to answer that question
Q2 Yep we get them, have a look at Naths report on the week end, plus Ive wacked a photo on from last year
Q3 The bigger barra will eat them, but so will the shags, cormorants, eagles, pelicans, catties, eels, cold snap, hot snap, water roll over etc etc
Q4 refer Q1
cheers and welcome to IBD
brian

[Steve B]

Shane,

Its a good question mate. A few basic stats that may help.

From the best of my knowledge there has been approx 1 million barra stocked in last 12 years or so. More recently about 100,000 in the last 12 months alone. Little fish have been getting caught but not as many as the big ones. I was talking to Rob from the holiday park the other night, He guides regularly and reckons he has been catching plenty between 45-75 which is a great sign from the last few stocks. My belief is these current 95-120 fish have had their peak growing years when the dam was at its prime with optimum water stability, great food source and limited pressure (until say late 2006 when the dam really became popular). Thats why I beleive there is so many in that range that you describe.

I am told the survival rate is approx 1 in 3, and the majority of the preditation on new fingerling comes from catties, not barra. Then theres birds, mother nature and all other factors....so 1 in 3 is pretty good I spose.

Thats my take on things. I hope this has helped.

Cheers Steve

[STIFFWORM]

Hi robers have been thinking the same thing myself. R there any smaller fish comming through? At the risk of being drawn and quartered should we start ta king some of the big girls in the intrest of future fishing? Dont want 2 get offside with anyone just thinking. Lets face it my record 1 fish from 7 trips im no threat.:-[

[BR65]

Thanks Steve, how did you go on the jacks, did you give them a bash?

[BR65]

Stiff W, touchy subject brother, IMHO, and its only IMHO, you go there to catch a meter plus, not a fingerling, take out all the big girls now, well, Tinaroo struggled there for a while.....
Reckon enough big uns get knocked on the head by the weather and the red necks trophy hunters/fillet brigade to balance it all out in the end, plus the bloody catties are ferocious, any barra fingerling that survives them desreves another chance

[Steve B]

Hi robers have been thinking the same thing myself. R there any smaller fish comming through? At the risk of being drawn and quartered should we start ta king some of the big girls in the intrest of future fishing? Dont want 2 get offside with anyone just thinking. Lets face it my record 1 fish from 7 trips im no threat.:-[

Stiffworm, No one is going to draw and quarter you mate!;D Its an idea, and not a wrong one I might add..In a way I agree with you that their needs to be balance. some come in at the bottom others go out at the top of the chain.

The big fish have got a bad name over the last few years for the un-scientifically proven gossip going around that they eat all the fingerlings. Our own stocking association that I am a part of still beleives this! Of course they may eat fingerlings,so do the smaller barra and catties and every other preditor around.

There a plenty of things that will kill big fish without the need to go on a culling spree..
1. people who chose to keep fish within their rights.
2. cold snaps
3. rollovers
4. people accidently spooking and mucking around trying to catch fish that are lazing in the shallows during winter (I have been guilty of this). This added stress on an already stressed fish.
5. Poor handling techniques.

theres probably more.!!!

So I think natural attrition will clean out plenty of the bigger buggers without our help....Some of our northern mates from Awoonga can tell horror stories about 1m + fish chucked up the bank because someone told them that would help the fingerlings...thank God those days have passed....well at least I hope they have.!!
This is just my opinion, I will probably get drawn and quartered with ya from the other side;D;D

cheers Steve

[Steve B]

Thanks Steve, how did you go on the jacks, did you give them a bash?

I wont hijack this one Brian, I will tack a little report when I get some photos onto the Borumba bash dribble!;D Did OK though!

[robersl]

Thanks guys for the responses .Brian yes i am working on my next trip up there and this is just a bit of home work, lol but i am surprised at the lack of smaller fish compared to the wild, Steve it is great to see the stocking program doing a lot of good is there any info on the growth rate of the fish in monduran ie: tagged fish caught and released ect and it is good that at least 1 in 3 survive, ,Stiffworm i think mother nature does her best to keep things equal you get fish kills every so often and there are the catties ect but i do not begrudge anyone taking a feed of fish weather it is barra or whiting as long as it is legal to do so but to me Barra taste like cardboard so i release all mine

Shane

[Whitto]

Hi robers have been thinking the same thing myself. R there any smaller fish comming through? At the risk of being drawn and quartered should we start ta king some of the big girls in the intrest of future fishing? Dont want 2 get offside with anyone just thinking. Lets face it my record 1 fish from 7 trips im no threat.:-[G'Day Les.....2 trips back I got onto 3 Barra in the 60cm range in the bottom end of B off weed bed points all fish from the same area within a hour on plastics.....tied off to a tree and hammered along the weed line.....The babies are alive and well make no mistake.........Culling off the Big girls, I think nature and bad handling does a good job in Monduran.....Awoonga and Tinaroo have three/four times the amount of Barra compaired to Monduran.......Bait= Flourshing fingerlings and Big girls and everthing in between Fun Fun Fun.....Thats how I see it......Whitto:D

[Peter4]

Here are our stats for Monduran barra sizes in 9 trips over the last two years:

<70cm - Nil
70-79cm - 6
80-89cm - 1
90-99cm - 17
100+cm - 3

Smallest 75cm, biggest 114cm...

Dunno if this helps but 63% of our fish are in the 90-99cm bracket. Either this was a good stocking period or are they more susceptible to lures at this size?.....

BTW the 'inhouse' family competitive score is 14 to me and 13 to Kyle!;D

Regs

Pete & Kyle

[black_sheep]

deleted post.

have moved it to Freshwater Report.

[chewy01]

Maybe Navi we should all chuck in a few bucks,and get Vin one of those float tubes the yanks use,so at least he is already in the water...

[DEANO68]

Navi, awsome read, mate if i ever see you two on the water , im fishin close by,not because you know where the fish are , but just to watch some of the antics..bugger the afc, i reckon channel 10 would make a killing getting that stuff on camera...good to see you got fish also, but i think we all enjoy your reports because of the misshaps....::) ...spring board ,good idea...;D ..

great stuff...

deano..8-)

[black_sheep]

Robers,

Sorry mate, was supppose to post under whitto's thread in freshwater reports - my bad.

Will remove it and stick where I should have :).

Chewy, you onto something.
Deano, if you only saw the half of it mate......

[SeekingBarradise]

Thanks for the report Navi it's good to see you are feeling better. As usual you guys had lots of fun and adventures. Well done on getting on to a few fish as well.

See you up there on the next trip. I agree we will have to plan some social time in the camp grounds.

Cheers Lyndon.

[eotbmg]

Will remove it and stick where I should have :).



Enough said!!!!

[robersl]

Robers,

Sorry mate, was supppose to post under whitto's thread in freshwater reports - my bad.

Will remove it and stick where I should have :).

Chewy, you onto something.
Deano, if you only saw the half of it mate......

No worries i am easy going mate

Shane

[robersl]

So is there a tagging program at mondy if so are there any results to look at

shane

[black_sheep]

Shane,

ANSA do record captures from Mondy. They will be doing a summary of all tagged fish from Mondy and Awoonga soon and I can post the data. I don't think too many others are tagging.

I'd have to check my records to confirm exact numbers but out of the 100 or so barra we have tagged at Mondy over the last 5 yrs, we have had only 3-4 recaptures. Interesting though that the 1 and only bass we have caught in that time was recaptured a couple of months later (and kept):'( - I guess as long as it made the dinner table:) .

The barra recaptures we have had are fish we tagged about 3yrs ago and were around the 55-65cms mark(very common size back then). All those recaptures went over the metre mark.

Cheers mate.

[robersl]

Shane,

ANSA do record captures from Mondy. They will be doing a summary of all tagged fish from Mondy and Awoonga soon and I can post the data. I don't think too many others are tagging.

I'd have to check my records to confirm exact numbers but out of the 100 or so barra we have tagged at Mondy over the last 5 yrs, we have had only 3-4 recaptures. Interesting though that the 1 and only bass we have caught in that time was recaptured a couple of months later (and kept):'( - I guess as long as it made the dinner table:) .

The barra recaptures we have had are fish we tagged about 3yrs ago and were around the 55-65cms mark(very common size back then). All those recaptures went over the metre mark.

Cheers mate.

Hi Blacksheep thanks for the response i would be interested in any data on growth rates in the dam ect and were only 100 tagged due to that was all you could locate or is there a scheme in place that will allow anglers to tag and release captures in the future like in comps and such to increase the amount of fish tagged and information coming in on growth rates and the release of new finglerings ect and survival rates ect

shane

[DEANO68]

I wont hijack this one Brian, I will tack a little report when I get some photos onto the Borumba bash dribble!;D Did OK though!


comon stevie, wheres these piccys...did ok...more info please.....>:(

deano...

[black_sheep]

Hey Shane,

My brother and I are ANSA members. Anyone can join for about $70 a year. They supply tags that allow you to tag in most areas - salt and fresh. We have been tagging fish for about 10yrs. The 100 or so barra that I mentioned have been tagged are from recreational trips over the last few years (no special program) - other ANSA members who fish Monduran would be tagging as well so I'm not sure of the total number of fish tagged in Mondy. As mentioned, hopefully that data of all tag and recaptures will become available from ANSA soon.

ANSA rely on the general public to become active members so tagging is 90% voluntary. We joined because we do a lot of catch and release and figured we may as well put something back into the fishery through tagging.

ANSA usually don't do tagging for comps etc especially not for impoundment barra as there is no real impact on the natural populations as they can't breed or migrate/travel. The main research they are doing is to determine growth rates - not sustainability.

I can chase up the few tag returns that we have had at Mondy but as mentioned, most fish we have had returns on were caught 3-4 yrs ago at around 60cms and are now just over a metre.

Hope this helps.

If you really want to know more, PM me with your phone number and I can call you.