These black crickets are in season at the moment they are here in there tens of thousands and can be found readily under almost anything  they will also come to lights at night . I spend about half an hour each day collecting them, the fish love them and readily take them off the top of the water. If you are going black fishing these are a great bait put them on a small hook under a float and fish near instream logs and debris.

These ponds are based on the first pond we dug which has been so productive it would be foolish to move to another design, notice the gum tree branches, the trunks will provide habitat for a long time the rock groynes( in the fore ground) will be able to shelter small fish and the leaves will impart eucalyptus into the water and a small amount of tannin all this will lead to more fish and healthier fish in the long run.

I have control over the water via the red handled tap also in the fore ground. You can also see clumps of grass this is couch grass it will spread all over  the bank and stop erosion of the top soil.

All ready for pipes, reeds and weeds are on standby some habitat in the form of rock groynes are in place and some large tree trunks have been cut ready to go in .

Three new blackfish ponds have just been  dug in our paddock, lots of work to do but will have them ready to except fingerlings next year.

This fish is a fine specimen and has probably been feeding on other fish in his tank.

UPDATE all is going well on separation day so far I have separated about twenty fish around half have been on the small side . Today I am going to separate the larger fish from the smaller ones this has to be done to stop the larger fish from predating on the smaller fish and this will give me a chance to boost the food intake for the ones not doing so well.Having said that it is my believe that I am in uncharted waters and nobody before me has bred these fish, and certainly not in these numbers and not to this stage (about four and a half months), the fish are still healthy and despite some size differences doing very well.

I would like for some of these fish to be in the open environment by now, but getting any action from the authorities is difficult , my intentions are to produce so many blackfish that they will have no choice but to help me and to restock rivers and streams, fisheries are yet to visit my facility (I have had a permit from them since 8/1/2010) let alone offer any help.

I cant help thinking that if these fish were trout fisheries would  be all over me, these fish are in trouble in the wild for a number of reasons some I have mentioned in earlier post, so we need to replenish there stocks so fishers can confidently go to these places and expect to catch a native fish that is both great to catch and to eat. If you can here a note of frustration in this post you are correct.

The fish are at the stage where they need to move onto bigger things to eat whilst they will still eat plankton , blood worms and brine shrimp I am going to introduce them to cooked yabby meat. I have caught about twenty large yabbies from my largest dam and I am going to prepare them the same as I would to eat myself . Once I have the tail meet I will freeze it , this allows me to store them for a long time and enables me to cut them into fine strips the correct size for the fish.If you would like to grow yabbies for yourself to eat and you have a dam and yabbies are present  then you can  feed the yabbies this will give you more and bigger yabbies, yabbies like legumes so peas beans Lucerne, all of these are legumes and there  are other things they will readily eat, however stay away from meat It  could mess up the water if it goes uneaten . if you wish to go further into growing your own yabbies on a bigger scale then please  leave your number in Coments  and I will be glad to help as much as I can.

this fish is eating a worm nearly as long as itself, you would not want to be a worm near these fish.

A friend of mine wrote this letter which tries to find a solution to the yearly fish kills that occur at the mouth of the Gellibrand river and other rivers along  the southwest coast .It may be relevant to other estuarine environs around Australia also.

Once again I am in debt to my neighbour for water in this very dry year.