Huge barra

[Richard]

We got this fella in Aplins Weir, Townsville.

1305mm, 34.5kg

It's the largest I've seen (or held)


cheers
Richard

[Barry Ehsman]

Congrat's Richard, Definatly the biggest i have seen well done

Cheers Baz

[Richard]

I must admit though, wasn't caught on a line, was caught with the help of a bit of electricity.. :)

very fat fish though and the scales were enormous..

[Barry Ehsman]

I must admit though, wasn't caught on a line, was caught with the help of a bit of electricity.. :)

very fat fish though and the scales were enormous..

At least you are honest mate..

Cheers Baz

[Steve B]

Nice fish Richard, good to see some biggies around like that. Thought the boat looked like an electro-fish outfit!

Still looks like good fun!

Cheers Steve

[rooboy98]

What an awesome fish!

Was it tagged? How many others did you get?

Cheers,
Roo.

[Richard]

Yeah it is still good fun when you get an impressive fish like this.

Roo - this big guy didn't have a tag in it but it does now. we tag all the barra we turned up in the couple of days we were there. Not sure how many we got in total but it would have been up around the 40-50 mark I'd say (maybe less, it's all a blur), with at least 8-10 of those being over a metre and a couple over the 120cm mark. I'll have to have a look at the data and get some real numbers for you

cheers

richard

[pilgrim]

Been down there heaps of times, not a scale. Going there tomorrow though. Nice fish congratulations.

[dodgyboy90]

great fishing....
hi i am new to this... i used to go fishing a fair bit but never for barra... and i have just been invited and i was wondering what rod and reel setup would be good for a begginer on a low budget... and anything else you might suggest to me for the trip cheers

dodgyboy

[darylive]

dodgy do a search on barra gear here mate and you will find heaps of infomation. :)

[Shawn 66]

Pardon my ignorance,could you please explain the statement, re: the use of electricity.

[Richard]

Hey FT,

The fish was caught using an electrofishing boat. We have an onboard generator running through a control unit to induce a current into the water. The boat is the cathode and we have two arms which reach about 2-3m out in the front of the boat which act as the annodes. This gives us a range of up to 4-5m around the front of the boat that we can stun fish, depending on the conductivity of the water (only works in freshwater). We generally run at voltages up to 1000V DC and up to 8 amps. Considering the amperes required to kill a person is only in the range of milli-amps, needless to say it is a very dangerous piece of equipment if not handled correctly. This is one of the reasons why the use of electrofishing equipment is so restricted.

It's a very good way of sampling what fish species are in a waterway because it stuns everything from a couple of millimetres long up to fish like this monster. You don't have to rely on what you can hook or catch in a net. We were sampling Aplins weir for a few of reasons,(1) to see how the stocked barra were growing, (2) to see what the populations of tilapia are doing in the weir water pool, and (3) we needed some big fish so JCU could implant some radio tags into their gut cavities to monitor movement of these big fish within the Ross River.

All pretty interesting stuff most of the time, it's a tough job :)


Richard

[STUIE63]

They would have been doing a survey and electro fish to knock the fish out they then do the survey and the fish wake up and swim away merrily
Stuie

[Shawn 66]

Hey FT,

The fish was caught using an electrofishing boat. We have an onboard generator running through a control unit to induce a current into the water. The boat is the cathode and we have two arms which reach about 2-3m out in the front of the boat which act as the annodes. This gives us a range of up to 4-5m around the front of the boat that we can stun fish, depending on the conductivity of the water (only works in freshwater). We generally run at voltages up to 1000V DC and up to 8 amps. Considering the amperes required to kill a person is only in the range of milli-amps, needless to say it is a very dangerous piece of equipment if not handled correctly. This is one of the reasons why the use of electrofishing equipment is so restricted.

It's a very good way of sampling what fish species are in a waterway because it stuns everything from a couple of millimetres long up to fish like this monster. You don't have to rely on what you can hook or catch in a net. We were sampling Aplins weir for a few of reasons,(1) to see how the stocked barra were growing, (2) to see what the populations of tilapia are doing in the weir water pool, and (3) we needed some big fish so JCU could implant some radio tags into their gut cavities to monitor movement of these big fish within the Ross River.

All pretty interesting stuff most of the time, it's a tough job :)


Richard
Thanks Richard,
What were your findings re;TILAPIA
Shawn

[Richard]

We were actually targetting tilapia in the Gleesons Weir pool upstream where they are replacing the wall. we found quite large numbers up there along with other nasties such as red devils and some other exotic species which looked to have been dumped from people's fish tanks, some species which also appear to be breeding quite happily in there which is concerning.

Tilapia are very hard to electrofish because of the way they react to the electric field. They usually just give a couple of flicks then go downwards instead of floating to the surface (like barra tend to do) and they don't seem to be affected by the field as much as other species. We could try different settings which might make it easier to catch the tilapia (like switching to AC current) but this is generally harmful to natives (breaks backbones, causes permanent lock jaw, etc) so it's something we wouldn't do unless we really had to.

So although we saw heaps of nests and plenty of fish, getting actual numbers was quite hard.

I'll try and dig up a photo of the electrofishing boat for you..


Richard

[Shawn 66]

I would appreciate the photo if you can manage it please Richard.
Shawn

[Richard]

Hi Shawn,

here is a picture of our rig at the moment.. it's a custom built thing and has to have plenty of floatation in it to accomodate the extra weight we have to carry.

You can see the arms out the front that act as the anodes. this picture was taken in the dam out at Richmond west of Townsville. We are only carrying our 'small' nets here as we were doing a 5 minute shot of electricity where we scoop everything we stun. We also do 20 minute shots where we just collect species of interest which usually include barramundi, sooty grunter (or gulf grunter in this case) and anything else unusual. You need a good pair of polaroids and a keen eye to pick which fish are which in the water..

Note the big rubber gloves and boots we wear and we are all standing on our own foot pedal which we have to keep depressed the whole time. As soon as any one of us lifts our foot off of our pedal, the whole system cuts out. Also each person control over the unit in case we see anything out of the ordinary in the field, like water birds, crocs or turtles.

cheers

richard

[Shawn 66]

G'Day Richard,
Thanks for the photo,looks like bloody interesting work.
Shawn

[rooboy98]

G'day Richard,

Did you guys catch much out of the dam at Richmond ?

My family and I camped there for a few days on holidays recently on our trip heading up in to the Gulf country. Kids loved the place. Some massive redclaw in there.

Cheers,
Roo.

[Richard]

Hi Roo,

Yeah we did catch quite a few barra out of there (40 or so) for the day but mostly in the smaller size of around the 40-50cm mark. We also caught quite a few gulf grunter but no sooty grunter which is a bit dissapointing considering they have been stocked in there a few times. We also got some huge bony bream (up to 45cm) and heaps of rainbows, etc. The water temp was pretty cold though (23) so that probably explains why we didn't get as many barra or food fish as we expected and why they were mostly up in the shallows right amongst the weed.

Interestingly enough, I used to live out there and I set up the stocking group there when the dam was first built. It was a bit weird going back there now being on the oither side of the fisheries fence but it was very satisfying to see lots of barra in there and the attraction it has become :)


cheers

richard

[Mak579]

Hi Richard,

Thankyou for your post, as a Townsvillian I have had the pleasure of the fishing the Ross River quite a few times and have enjoyed the unique experience of catching metre plus barra in the centre of a major city - it's an amazing river!

I'm also incredibly interested in the habits of the barramundi, both fresh and salt. In your previous post you mentioned JCU doing a radio tracking program of the barra, are you aware if this information will be available to the public or who I maybe able to contact regarding this.

Please PM me if appropriate.

Kind Regards
Matt Coleman

[Richard]

Hi Matt,

The name of the guy doing the research eludes me at the moment but I'll check up on his name and PM you from work.

Can't see why he'd want to keep it from the public but will ask him first just in case.

cheers

Richard

[Richard]

Hey Matt,

Sorry for the delay but been a bit busy at work. I emailed Amos who is the guy at JCU doing that research and he replied with the following -

Thanks for the email Richard,

Feel free to pass on my email address. I am happy to talk to anyone about the project. The more people who know about what we are doing the better as they may be the one who catches one of our tagged fish and it always nice if the fish is put back in the water or we get the tag back.

I have written an article for the fishing NQ magazine which has recently come out and this includes some information about the movement patterns of the tagged fish.



Cheers
Amos



FYI


I downloaded some of the acoustic receivers last week and the fish you caught with Mal was detected on the receiver near the mouth of the river on the 19th of October . So the fish wasted no time in moving downstream unlike some of the fish which have remained upstream in the river. We will download the offshore array in the new year.



Amos Mapleston
Fishing and Fisheries Research Centre
School of Environment and Earth Sciences
James Cook University
Townsville QLD 4811
Email: amos.mapleston@jcu.edu.au

[kickouttheclams]

Hey Richard, really interesting post mate thanks. I'm a Townsvillian and there are plenty of rumours flying around about the introduced nasties in the Ross. Aside from the Red Devils could you tell us what other exotic species you found during your session and any other interesting exotics that have have turned up in the past. It'd be good to seperate fact from fiction with regards to what is swimming in there!

[Richard]

We didn't find much else those days apart from tilipia (Mossambicus mouth brooders). Other exotics we have found have been convict cichlids and black shark minnow and there's bound to be more exotics in there we haven't zapped yet. I'd say most of these have been ex-fish tank specimens that people have thought they were doing the kind thing when releasing into the waterway.

[beejay1947]

I have often caught tilipia (up to 30 cm in size) when cast-netting for mullet etc in the saltwater pools below Aplin's weir - got nearly a dozen in one cast once in a section with a gravelly bottom.
They were all despatched onto the higher banks above the high tide mark to bake in the sun!
On a positive note I have sometimes netted juvenile barra about 20/25 cms.

Bruce