Private dam breeding

[Strike]

Gday all,

A couple of years ago my pop stocked his dam with silver perch and yellowbellies. He was told at the time that these fish will not breed but I swear i've seen little guppies swimming round now and again. Regardless these fish have been buggers to catch since day 1. We've tried all sorts (lures, bait - grasshoppers, bread, meat etc). The only decent one I caught smashed a grasshopper on float as soon as it hit the water. Haven't seen any signs of them since. We think eel's may have gotten the majority when they were smaller but the one i caught went at least a kilo. Is there any sure fire way to find out whether any survived?

Cheers

Nick

[Richard]

Hi Nick,

Really the only way to find out whether any have survived is to either drain the dam or maybe run a drag net through it depending on the size of the dam.

Probably both of those aren't an option and without some specialist type of gear (like eletrofishing equipment), there'd be no real easy way of finding out I'm afraid.

I have heard a stick of TNT would do the trick though, but thats probably a bit hard to get unless you are a school teacher wanting to blow up a car or something.


Richard

[Strike]

Actually I pictured how fun blowing the dam up would be. Unfortunately they are short of water at the moment but at least their dam size would increase ;D

[yibbiy]

hi Nick,
My old mans work place has a large dam, well stocked with silver perch.
Some of the fish are huge, and as for being told they wont breed, i have been told the same thing. I find this very hard to believe, especially when the dam has been stocked for over 15 years, and you pull in fish over 30 cms, and then pull in fish a quater of the size. . . .although, tyres joined together to make 10m long " tubes" were put in around the dam to act as "breeding traps."

As far as catching them i only use bread with small float, and have never been there more than 30 mins without hooking up. As far as finding out if they are still there, im not too sure what u could do other than Richards suggestions.

cheers,
jimmy.

[TinarooTriumph]

G'day mate,

Yer sticking with the subject of floats... just a worm or any live bait on a shank or a suicide hook on some unweighted line with a float above your leader should do the trick. Apart from that, if you were that keen to see what is in your pop's dam, i say go the snorkel and goggles son! TNT aint a bad idea, thats how we did our dams and thats how we do our motorcross pits... good old TNT.

And if you hook onto an Eel, smoke the bastard and eat him! They arnt bad if you know some good recipes.

Theo 8-)