A 147cm barramundi

And jacks, salmon, jewfish - tell us how you went. NT, FNQ and Norwest.
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Matt Flynn
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A 147cm barramundi

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theodosius
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by theodosius »

I'll believe that measurement when I see a tape measure or brag mat under it!
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by Matt Flynn »

Yes, hard to tell.
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by ronje »

I think the claim should be believed in the context of the other claims made in the post.

To claim in support that a 3 year old barramundi reaches 117cm is simply fanciful.

Enthusiasm rather than common sense at work.
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by NBN »

100cm in four years under ideal conditions (impoundments) is my understanding?
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by ponyplay »

hard to say not sure how accurate is wat iv just done with it , guys hand would be 100mm :? but the guys a chipie and found it dead so no need to tell a fishy tale in regards to its size, and should be good with measurement even if he did 100mm trick. so if it was flat on the deck could be around that mark , big fish either way
In regards to the growth rate , tagging and records of the stocked fish has started . The fellow that is involved in most of th data ect has more credibility on his little finger than those quick to jump on and call it for rubbish or fanciful..

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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by Dick »

ronje wrote:I think the claim should be believed in the context of the other claims made in the post.

To claim in support that a 3 year old barramundi reaches 117cm is simply fanciful.

Enthusiasm rather than common sense at work.
I did note the doubt on the page regarding growth rates echoed here. And I agree that it seems extra ordinary. To address the keyboard 'experts' there I put together the following post on that page -


Just a clarification on the 117cm barra being three years old - Northbound has got the essence of the story right but there are a few slight variants to it. Since there is some interest I’ll put the details up here.

The verification of the origin of the fish stock was done a couple of ways, the dye mentioned was one but we also took genetic material that was analysed by James Cook University.

From the samples sent to them we had five come back labelled ‘western’ (Ord) fish and three labelled ‘eastern’ (fish that were escapees from the old commercial fishery upstream in Lake Argyle) and we always knew there was going to be a mixture of the two types of fish.

From the Ord stock four were over a metre, 100cm, 102cm, two at 110cm and one at 115cm, (a note on the 117cm fish, there has been a bit of a mix up on that size that could have originated from me, apologies for that, I've just checked the data to get verification for this post and it was 115cm).

Our view whilst taking the samples was that most likely there were restocked fish on or about the metre size maximum and approximately three years old. So we were targeting that size for samples. We did however take samples of larger fish that we expected would be the old commercial stock, on that point we were quite wrong.

The 115cm fish was captured on the 11th Dec 2015 and the two 110cm fish were captured on 28th Jul 2016. The first drop of fish into the lake was in January 2013 (30,000 fish). It’s most likely that the fish came from that one not subsequent drops made later in the year.

Incidentally the three ‘eastern’ fish were, two at 117cm and one at 123cm.

On discussion with the hatchery regarding the growth rates of the three larger fish. They verified that they got similar growth rates in the hatchery and had to restrict the diet to the breeders to slow it down. In the lake however diet is no restriction to growth rates.

We would have liked to have had more samples tested but unfortunately the first lot met with an accident in some way, shape or form once they left us. This coming year we intend to take more samples of the larger fish to see if we can gain more information on their growth rates.

It seems clear that with the abundance of food in the lake the growth rate of the restocked barra outstrips significantly growth rates of wild fish.

Incidentally the capture method of all the fish we samples was rod and reel but other sample fish have been taken by other means as part of the project.

Additionally as I understand the Calcein (dye) does not transfer from fish to fish, if it did it wouldn’t be suitable for the purpose it is used for.
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by NBN »

Wow.
Dick, to confirm; the 115 was just on 3 years old?
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by Dick »

NBN wrote:Wow.
Dick, to confirm; the 115 was just on 3 years old?
It appears to be but errors can be made as we're only human and there are a few of them in the train from capture to reporting. What has me confident is the fact that three of the larger fish caught all belonged to that Ord strain and there was two separate methods of testing by two separate organisations - the hatchery where we sent the samples to and the University that in turn got them from the hatchery. If a stuff up was made it was done for all three fish. I'm banking that both orgs were professional enough in their id process that something like that wouldn't happen.

As indicated I really wasn't targeting the larger fish, I was (mixture of hoping and expecting) thinking the metre fish may well have been restocked fish but the thought that the larger fish, say 105 - 110 and above would have had to be old stock. I ended up taking a few samples just to confirm those older fish matched the early genetic material we took a few years ago from Lake Argyle that's all. I nearly left them out of the mix. Which means I guess you shouldn't assume, if I had we'd not have had the results and all we would be discussing is the smaller metre fish getting to that size in three years.

The hatchery mob cut their feed back to stop them growing at those sort of rates but only after they saw how quick they were growing. In the lake and with barras being pigs they just stuffed their faces all day every day with bony bream I guess.

Not sure how your wet was up there, good i expect but ours bred up heaps of mullet. We watched fish on the Ord go from normal size to pigs with fins within a few months. They'll lose a lot of that condition during the dry but it does show that they are capable of putting on condition very rapidly.

PS here is an image of the glowy fin from one of the fish injected with calcein at the hatchery prior to release, this fish was one of the ones just over a metre from memory
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by NBN »

Thx for the info Dick, very interesting. Phenominal growth rates.

When is the next sampling scheduled?
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by Dick »

NBN wrote:Thx for the info Dick, very interesting. Phenominal growth rates.

When is the next sampling scheduled?
Next time I can find an aggregation of larger fish to target. It'll be a bit different this dry, the lake was dropped 5 metres whilst they did some work on the dam over the wet and we've had a heap of water run through the system over the wet. Spillway is running somewhere around for metres at the moment so there is a lot of water moving through the system. Not sure what that will do regarding finding those big girls again, will have to see but confident I'll spot them sooner or later. Can still find the smaller ones. Got one at 92 the other day and they show on the sounder. A bit hard to tempt just at this point however.

This is very much a learning curve over here at the moment. Big kick-ass fish like that beast found dead and the growth rates make it for interesting work if nothing else.
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by theodosius »

Cheers for the info Dick
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by bobj »

Very interesting. In Sept. 2011 my wife and I went to the Spillway to our old campsite above the bridge and;
We liked the Spillway area and millions of gallons of good water going down it. A few days spent relaxing and fishing for whatever was silly enough to take a lure. Managed several 'hits' but only landed 1 fish, a freshwater longtom of about 65 cm. No pic as I had left the camera in the camp and walked the bank.
I must say that Jo and I were thoroughly disgusted at the amount of rubbish left at the various 'camps'. In a 1 km section of the spillway, I picked up enough fishing line, ranging from 10 lb to 120 lb to fill 2 placcy shopping bags!

Another gripe...5 dead and rotting freshwater crocs at 3 of the 'camps'. These people really are moronic. Also, found 4 dead and stinking barramundi amongst the rocks, the smallest being 116 cm and the largest being 125 cm...A great and sad waste.
Cheers, bobj.
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by ponyplay »

bobj wrote:Very interesting. In Sept. 2011 my wife and I went to the Spillway to our old campsite above the bridge and;
We liked the Spillway area and millions of gallons of good water going down it. A few days spent relaxing and fishing for whatever was silly enough to take a lure. Managed several 'hits' but only landed 1 fish, a freshwater longtom of about 65 cm. No pic as I had left the camera in the camp and walked the bank.
I must say that Jo and I were thoroughly disgusted at the amount of rubbish left at the various 'camps'. In a 1 km section of the spillway, I picked up enough fishing line, ranging from 10 lb to 120 lb to fill 2 placcy shopping bags!

Another gripe...5 dead and rotting freshwater crocs at 3 of the 'camps'. These people really are moronic. Also, found 4 dead and stinking barramundi amongst the rocks, the smallest being 116 cm and the largest being 125 cm...A great and sad waste.
Think you will find near all them dead barra / crocs are from being smashed from going over spillway wall or being smashed in the Rapids current of spill way , just like the big barra in this article . As for the rubbish , caused by dirty pigs the two legged kind
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Re: A 147cm barramundi

Post by bobj »

The main point was that these barra were from 2011 and they were supposedly only stocked above the divi dam (L Kununurra) in 2013. That being the case, someone must have put a few in the lake, well prior to 2013 and certainly prior to 2011..
I have a photo from 2011 of a 'tailing barra' guesstimated at 130 cm. But I cannot get the pic on this forum.
Cheers, bobj.
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