Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Quiz FFF members on fishing and outdoors topics using the forum polling function

Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Yes
22
69%
No
10
31%
 
Total votes: 32

User avatar
Scottie5.3
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 705
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:59 pm
Location: Acacia hills

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by Scottie5.3 »

Ok just so I'm clear on this was the salt intrusion natural or man made to reclaim land for grazing? us younger guys never got to see shady in the eighties and have no idea about what it was like


Scott's mobile mechanics- 0421 965 093

Life is hard, but it's harder if your stupid - John Wayne
User avatar
fish4me123
Seadog
Seadog
Posts: 393
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:23 am
Location: darwin

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by fish4me123 »

The upstream 1st barrage was always salt The barrage was a natural hard greyish rock and about a meter lower than the concrete now.. After the btec program came in the buff were not a problem. So this was a was not a real problem it was a poor decision that has snow balled to a real problem. the backed up water in the dry season is having a big affect I am 51 and spent a huge amount of time out there. Hands up who can remember the old road. It took 1 hr to do 10kms
tight lines
nomad
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 5770
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:29 pm
Location: PALMERSTON
Contact:

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by nomad »

Great info. how far up do you reckon the salt went past the barrage? was corrob ever salt/brackish?
Ive been looking at a few topos and cant tell how much higher the corrob is than the barrage
cuddlescooper
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 3116
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:23 pm
Location: Darwin

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by cuddlescooper »

This is a hard case that in my eyes has two sides to the story and they are probably gonna have exactly the same out come eventually. Mother nature has designed the river to have salt water intrusion ( In my eyes it really only benifited the pasturalists initially, probably fisherman now because it condenses the fish making them easier to find).

What we have seen over the period of 40 odd years (Im not that old but have talked to plenty of people who are) is the birth of a big river system. In my eyes the South and East Alligators are the model that San Pan and Tommycut will follow. It is the process that takes hundreds if not thousands of years but sections of river block off creating billabongs as the river meanders along. It is theorised that the South alligator originally ran where the culvert is now according to the geologists. Over time this has moved to the east and left shallow flood plains and marsh as it has silted over. lots of billabongs on the upstream side. Just an example Yellow waters

Shady is at a point where it is moving inland fast due to the low plains and the salt water is designed by mother nature to intrude inland creating the same process as the other big rivers moving and recreating wetlands and swamp. When a billabong is inundated by salt it kills all the big trees in the area Ie the dead forrest. Eventually this area will probably become marsh again to a large extent and as the river moves off some of these areas will become billabongs and channels when the deeper pools block off. Eventually it will silt over and trees will regrow as the salt subsides. It will be more fertile from the river sediment built up and the rotting marshes ect.

In my eyes the barrages did what they have been designed by man to do and slow down the intrusion of the salt but it has inadvertently sped up the process of land reclamation on the down stream side of the barrage as seen by the mangroves over taking the main channel at a great rate every year. A good example would be the S bends. It used to be all clear and open flood plain and the river was one huge eddie. Now it is all mangroved over and silted up losing the eddie and the scouring action that gave it its depth. This happened in a period of 20 years or less.

Over the years the main barrage has lost a great deal of its flow, water taking its easiest path with least resistance has blown open the second barrage (hard to blow open the main one as it is engineered to hold better plus coffee rock bar it is built on). Not to mention the straighter path it created for the flow over the 2nd barrage. The main channel will now silt up and in a few years you will be lucky to be able to launch there IMHO. The second barrage will then be the major river course. The first bend on the upstream side of the 1st barrage will eventually become a small billabong and silt over eventually with out man made intervention.

To me if the barrages were not there the river would have inundated the flood plains eventually for sure but new ones would have been created soon after and the fish population would move along accordingly only a bit further inland than it currently is. I think the process would take a lot longer then it has on the down stream side. I think eventually the fresh side is going to be over takin too and I believe the process has been excelerated by the barrages. The only problem is the fish get stuck behind them now as they are built higher than any natural rock bar.

As for the fish population, well, It is one huge system and always will be but ya cant add a thousand people a week onto any system and think the fish are going to be as prolific as they used to be! On top of this 140 odd tonnes of barra had been pulled from the system from netters per year so the pressure was high. It should improve for a while now but I don't think we have seen the last of the problems. I think we are gonna see large populations of big fish but less smaller ones. And eventually the cycle will come around where they are under threat again.

It may just be a crazy thought by myself and a couple of mates but perhaps the closure of the fresh side for the first of the flood period to protect the thousands of smaller fish that are caught at the barrage in my eyes is probably just as important as protecting the big ones. I have stood there and seen baby barra after baby barra getting caught and then shakin off by pliers, Scaled from the concrete and in general injured before release. A fair percentage of these fish would die as well.

So, do I agree with the barrages being a positive initially. No. Do I think we should now remove them- No. That will definatly accelerate the situation again. IMHO. Should we put a pathway for fish to get out to sea during initial rains of the season- yes. Do i like the opening of the salt side. Not sure, it spreads the pressure off other rivers but we had a closure put in place to protect breeding fish for a reason. I guess if a few of these big fish get takin out of the system it may well help equilize the above situation out. Should the fresh be shut for a couple of months of november/ december/january.-yes it protects migrating fish (probably only untill some fish gates are put in place possibley).

Sorry if a lot of this don't make a lot of sense but a lot of thoughts all got jumbled into one pile in a very short time.
User avatar
fish4me123
Seadog
Seadog
Posts: 393
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2010 7:23 am
Location: darwin

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by fish4me123 »

I believe the answer is a fis lift and a man maid weir that gets winched each wet alwing water levels in the upside section to normalise. I am a dumb hick so I don't know how. The fish being caught at the moment are mostly being released and a small law change could be maid Toursts and locals would still go.
thanks greg
tight lines
User avatar
grumpy
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 1046
Joined: Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:00 pm
Location: Humpty Doo
Contact:

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by grumpy »

I wrote a story for Matt’s fishing mag which has some pictures of us fishing Shady before the barrages (mid 70's). The bottom end (heading towards the mouth) was all fresh and lined with weed. Buffalo definitely helped keep the water clear of lilies and the likes all the way up through into Corroboree Billabong. The idea of the barrages as I remember was to stop the salt killing off the paperbark forests which used to hold thousands of baby barra until released in the next wet. These are all but gone killed by the salt coming up from underneath the flood plains in the dry.

As far as the myth goes about the professionals flogging the joint I know what they used to catch and I have a fair idea what 50 to 100 boats a day will pull out of there for a few months of the year and believe me there aren’t too many millionaire fishermen floating around up here so you work it out.

Corroboree and Hardies were hit hard with poachers in the early days and there were very limited amateurs and those that did venture out had 10 or 12 footers with under 10hp motors.

My Opinion for what it is worth there are probably more fish now than ever but they are just getting smarter.

You can’t have a billabong produce the same as they used to back then when they only saw one or two small dingies a week now they have 100 boats 5 meter plus a day with 90hp belting up and down. The fish are still there look at the fishing surveys they did up until recently at Corroboree.

Cheers grumpy :mrgreen:
A mans boat is a sign of his strengths and weaknesses???? (and wealth)
jdrob
Bronze Member
Bronze Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Nov 30, 2013 12:26 pm

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by jdrob »

Restricting commercial fishing at Chambers Bay/ Finke Bay is a step in the right direction.
baldrick
New Member
New Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:35 pm

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by baldrick »

I wonder how many people can claim that they boated from Corroboree to Hardies in the wet season? I used to when the channels were open. This was up until 2002. Since then with the raising of the barrages, the channel that was there has silted over and in the dry, is nearly level with the surrounding land. The rock bar at Shady was the bottom part of the top lagoon. When the barrage is now, the bar was approx. 1.5mt below the cement. You can still see the rocks that they cemented over. The only time I saw the salt in that lagoon was on 6.5m tides and above. There was always a fairly strong freshwater flow throughout the system that would flush out the lagoon on the low tides. In all the times that I fished the lower Mary system, I cannot remember any of the lower lagoons being all salt. The land just above the rock bar was always higher than below. The ground around it were a natural "barrage" for the saltwater intrusion.
Further, the buffalo were a contributing factor to the saltwater intrusion in the lower reaches as he land was always boggy, resulting in the swamps being riddled with buffalo tracks that allowed the saltwater to flow un-impeded into the freshwater swamps.
Then on the other side, the buffalo in the upper reaches kept the channels open and free-flowing. Now that they are gone, most of these channels are now overgrown with the introduced grasses.
I can not see any easy fix to the problem other than the lowering of the barrages so that they will hold out tides lower than 6.5m so that the fish can still move upstream. The natural flow of the freshwater can still flush out the last of the salt. Either that or they build sluice gates or fish ladders.
Over to the audience for thoughts.
baldrick
New Member
New Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:35 pm

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by baldrick »

Sorry another point...there are barrages all along the coast from the Adelaide River to the West Alligator (I think). All built for the same reason. However it is only in the Mary River delta that they are continually raised and hardened.
As for the fishing quality, have a talk to George Voukoulos or a fishing writer and they could tell you about the way the fresh used to be.
User avatar
ghound
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 1157
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:57 pm
Location: Bee's Creek

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by ghound »

We used to fish a barrage in th e90's way up the top of one of the Whiltshires.(can't remember which one). Not sure if it is still there or got washed away? Needed a 12 footer and a chainsaw to get to it though.
User avatar
STANDY
Jedi Seadog
Jedi Seadog
Posts: 1099
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 1:08 pm
Location: Darwin

Re: Is the Shady Camp barrages problem getting worse?

Post by STANDY »

Its the big floods that come every now and then that push water over the barrage for months at a time that the breeding really kicks up a gear. Several years of less than normal rain will effect all life cycles of plants, insects, fish and animals alike.

The data that the department of agriculture NT and NAQS ( Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy) scientists have is some of the best recorded in the country.
Entomologists that do flood plains surveys every year have extensive water levels data from year to year. The last 10 years there has seen two big wet seasons that have been remembered by all for the fishing that has resulted shortly after. 2006 and 2010 off hand. If we look further back to 30 years it is a similar pattern on a 2-3 big wets every 10 years that replenish the whole system.

Hard when you get a fishing report off the misses ever year from places i will never fish and its 7 fish over 70cm in 8 casts
Floodplain survey.JPG
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
A Fish in the Boat is Worth Five in the Shop.
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Fishing Polls”