North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Thought id threw this up might interest a few guys from back down this way. Am back down home for christmas, and with the river is in full flood thought id go for a cruise and check out the fish kill rumours that id herd about. With the river flooding the bush, launching the boat from down the back paddock was easy..




The Goulbern river, murray river junction is right behind the folks so i headed up the river to the junction to discover the rumours where correct. There was dead fish floating all over the place, it was a strange feeling as i drove along finding 40 to 50 pound cod belly up along with hundreds of yellas thinking how long it would take for it to recover from such thing. I think it kind works on the same principals as coorobere, but i doubt this system may be able to recover as quickly.




The lack of oxygen also forces the native cray fish out of the river and up to the high ground trying to breath and survive. Before any one ask with them so venerable atm the fisheries have placed a $4000 fine on any one caught in posse ion of one, so no i dare not touch them. Be very easy to fill a esky up in no time with big crays ,so hopefully people follow the rules. At least these may survive.



Further up the river and away from the junction there was no signs of kills or crays trying to escape so that was a positive.

Dont think there will be to many christmas new years fetivities at this location this year




Might head further upfield in the coming days and see if i can catch sum that smell a tad bit fresher ...........

Awsome post mate! great photos. Shame to see big cod like that dead but I guess that is nature!

thanks ponyplay great pix can you get some more ,i love that area

Great pic's mate, shame to see the mighty murray cod belly up like that, those buggers are prob 30 or 40 yrs old!! My father had told me that the crays were crawling up the trees in various spots along the river, amazing all the years I/he has lived down there we've never seen it. Love my native fishing hopefully the water has settled down by march when i go home for a visit.

Top pictures and report Pony, pretty amazing scenes. Been a long time since the water was like that

Great post. Such a shame about the fish dying. Hopefully there's a chance for them all to have a bumper breeding season and recover eventually. Those cray pics are awesome. Cheers.

Hey mate,
Great photos. As said above a shame to se the big cod belly up!! Hope ya find somewhere to get into a few!! Those crays are awesome lookin' critters too!!
Oh yeah who took the photos of Rooy and put em up on the web?

pony can you get some more pix please

BarraBase wrote:pony can you get some more pix please

Mate il be heading out during next few weeks il post few more up

This was posted By Will Trueman On another site

the big kills in the murray from 1929-34 were not caused by 'blackwater' flood events. they were in fact caused by copper sulphate treatment of the hume weir to kill algae. i cant tell you anything about the extent of what will happen but i can show here a few things from the past.

first, an official fisheries report from 1930:

'Worse than drought is the effect of the first freshet thereafter; the dry watercourses have been made the receptacle of all the fallen eucalyptus leaves and bark from the trees standing in the channel and on the banks from the excrement of stock which find shelter under the eucalypts from the summer sun; at times the accumulation is like a carpet, inches in depth.

A few years ago—at Booligal, the local police officer reported that he had employed a man with a horse and dray to remove great numbers of dead fish from the low weir there and cart them away—they had been destroyed in the manner described by the first small freshet after a drought, had drifted down with the current and accumulated against the weir……This has been going on since the world began and will continue until doomsday, yet so great is the power of recovery of our fisheries that given good seasons within a couple of years the fishery is restored—by migration and by natural reproduction. '

second, a news account:

'Deniliquin Pastoral Times 5 August 1865
MORTALITY AMONGST THE FISH – It is rather an extraordinary thing that the fish in the Darling and Murray are dying in thousands.

Deniliquin Pastoral Times 9 September 1865
MORTALITY AMONGST FISH – The unusual mortality previously noticed as occurring in the Murray and Edward, is not confined to those southerly streams, but extends to the Darling and its tributaries. On the Macquarie, we hear the deaths amongst the finny tribe have been so enormous as to show a probability of the entire stock being extinguished. On the Murrumbidgee similar complaints are heard. '

as i said earlier, in the wakool and smaller streams its a natural, regular occurence. it might be upsetting, but a fact of life. in the larger rivers i think we have added to the problem. we have to get some water back so that each spring we get some flooding of wetlands. in 1950 it was reported that over a third of the wetlands along the murray had been made permanently dry and its only got worse.

thanks for that craig308 ,my grandfather was a commercial fisherman up stream from echuca in the 20s

our grandfathers my have know each other bb. mine was a sleep cutter in barmah in the 20s and 30s

corry boys had the saw mill in bamah forest so would defiantly know them

Few more pics of murray around barmah area, went for fish with dingo but things where dead. Still nice day and cruise around


Barmah Bridge








Wallabies trapped on very small island, sum kind person put hay on it for them. Lucky their not in territory



Murray meets Barmah lakes , river to the left

It was good to catch up for a fish Pony, thanks for the trip.

here are a few pics of the river in flood.

The one with the caravan is at the Barmah Caravan Park.

The one of Pony stearing is just after he found out that the St Kilda players like to take photos of each other in the nude