Awoonga is over

[tossie]

It happened around 12.30 pm today witha slow dribble. Well and truly running now and still raining in the catchment.

Cheers Shaun

[warrior]

was there yesterday and it looked real close and with the rain today it should belt over hope the barra decide to stay in the dam though but

[Sniper]

Mondy might go over too. The BOM has a flood warning out for the Kolan River by the looks of it.

Is this the first time Awoonga has ever gone over?

Bill

[lifestyle]

Are they going to close mondy to boating if it goes over the spillway. I emailled them last week (with no reply)on what they would do if it overflowed.

[Luc]

Somewhere I read that there was a line of buoys marking off a no go zone near the wall.

The person who wrote this mentioned that the no go zone put some good spots out of reach.

Luc

[cosmo]

was there yesterday and it looked real close and with the rain today it should belt over hope the barra decide to stay in the dam though but

You could see the Barra going over the spillway today. They were schooling up right near the dam wall. Sometimes 2 and 3 at a time would go over of the spill way. One was floating downstream while I was there but all the others dissappeared into the river.

[mangomick]

Work mate counted 20 going over in just over a minute. This was one of his photos

[Lovey80]

Maybe they are making their run for freedom while they have a chance. The Kolan should fish very well in the coming years. Just think all those Barra will be eating quality in a few weeks. Will also give a chance for those smaller ones that dont make it over a better chance of making it to big sizes with less competition in the dam.

[aussiebasser]

How long do you figure those fish will survive in either the Kolan or the Boyne. There is a finely balanced eco system in those rivers. A few thousand apex predators added in one hit could have a big effect on the rivers. You are not permitted to target Barra in the rivers until the season opens on February 1st.

[rabbi]

They be tha smart barra.

Would love to be there to watch it happen as its not a common occurence.

Ill just have to settle with me southern barra at this stage.

Steve.

[Wazzup01]

Just think of how many Barra have gone over the wall. The dam was 780mm over the spillway Monday morning, averaging very conservatively at least 2 to 3 barra a minute going over the wall by all reports that I have heard and What I also observed this afternoon. So that is 2 to 3 BIG Barra a minute since at least Monday morning and they are still tumbling over as I type this some 2160 minutes since 8am yesterday morning.

From what I observed this afternoon there are some big mummas going over that wall.
I wonder what the survival rate would be?

[eureka]

don't forget there have been 3 MILLION stocked over the years don't think it will put much of a dent in the population in the dam

[gladbream]

from what has been counted throughout daylight hours by myself and staff, and calculating the average number per hour, it is predicted that 4700 has gone over. i has slowed down dramatically today and the spillway is falling now. when not counting barra i have been walking the boyne river looking for dead barra, and have had several reports of pools of dead fish. i dont know what was going on or if i was in the wrong river system, but i could not raise a dead fish at all. there is soo many fish still in there, and from my last media release (today) i have calculated there was 450,000 to 500,000 prior to the dam toppling, so the number that have gone over is a small figure. many fish have made the mouth of the creek already, and entered the gladstone harbour.

cheers

[banshee]

from what has been counted throughout daylight hours by myself and staff, and calculating the average number per hour, it is predicted that 4700 has gone over. i has slowed down dramatically today and the spillway is falling now. when not counting barra i have been walking the boyne river looking for dead barra, and have had several reports of pools of dead fish. i dont know what was going on or if i was in the wrong river system, but i could not raise a dead fish at all. there is soo many fish still in there, and from my last media release (today) i have calculated there was 450,000 to 500,000 prior to the dam toppling, so the number that have gone over is a small figure. many fish have made the mouth of the creek already, and entered the gladstone harbour.

cheers

In your opinion will these fish go on to be a viable breeding base for the area and if so how far could they spread up or down the coast?

[gladbream]

banshee
all fingerlings that have been stocked into awoonga are from wild caught broodstock, as a precautionary measure in th event of a overflow as this. this limits the bottlenecking of the gene pool (or providing genetic diversity) within the wild population. they will become brooding fish, but wont be this season, too late. how far can they spread, well that is too hard to answer. i have seen 2 fish move over the wall with tags in them so if someone wants to do the math of a total of 5 fish say that have exited the dam with tags, over 29,760 tags in fish in the dam, with say 400,000 (minimum figure) barra out there, you may be able to work out the number of actual fish in there (approximately). if these fish are returned in the wild they have my number on them tags so i will keep you updated.

cheers
kurt