North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Over again.

By latest reading from Awoonga its .68 metre over the spillway.

Big barra going over the top again into Boyne River and eventually into southern rivers at Gladstone, Bundaberg, Maryborough, Noosa.

Upstream Boyne River is the place to be for a while now.

Yes, some crazy fishing when that happens.

Although reading about the fallout from the last great spill, it's not all good news.

Wonder how many of those big girls actually do survive and settle down as breeders in the salt.

There are some large concrete buttresses at the bottom of the slide to breakup water impact at the bottom of the spillway slide. If a fish hits one of those squarely then it dies on impact.

Many are injured in the slide process and die downstream.

Those that survive the slide and the following pro-netters smorgasbord at Gladstone eventually migrate south along the coast after salting up.

Since 2013 an extra 1.4 million barra have been stocked to replace those lost in the previous spillovers. Making total of 4.4 million since stocking started.

There have also been 71,000 mangrove jack stocked over the years and some of those would be pretty big by now. Reports of fishos rigged for big barra and getting demolished can only be attributed to big mangrove jacks (but not a mangrove anywhere).

When the jack numbers build a bit Awoonga's big jack fishery will start to rival PNG's black bass reputation (but closer to home).

I recall they stocked a lot of odd stuff in Awoonga. Have any of the other species showed up since?

Not in any numbers Matt.

But mj have been caught. Some big ones ( up to 8kg) were put in there along with the 71,000 others.

Johnny Mitchell provided a lot of the big barra broodstock for the Gladstone Area Water Board for stocking Awoonga. He's also had some experience with the mangrove jack in Awoonga. See his attached

link.http://www.johnnymitchellsfishingcharte ... woonga.htm

If you get the opportunity to look at his latest video you might like to stock up on the headphones he uses. A sure "must have" for chasing fish.