If you are a youngster just starting out on a life time of fishing, remember fresh live bait is always preferred by fish , if you cant get fresh and alive then get the next best thing, remember to that it sometimes takes effort to find your fresh bait whether its worms or yabbies or in this case wood grubs.

These grubs are found in trees often at the end of their lives and you can often see holes on the outside of the tree where some of the grubs have already left, the grubs have a flat head  unlike the Bardi grub which is more rounded and of course they are found in holes in the ground under some Gum trees .

No matter the kind of fish you are after fresh is best .

Travis Dowling from fisheries has assured me that the hatchery at Snobs Creek are to attempt to breed River Blackfish along with other troubled fish such as Trout Cod, this is good news maybe at long last the Blackfish will get the recognition they deserve.

This does not mean that I have given up on a southern hatchery I am just please there are finally experts who put their knowledge to the problems surrounding this fish, I wish them well.

Its way past time that we got serious about saving this fish as you can see its been going on for to long.

1919 blackfish study

UPDATE: I went back to the Cooriemungle creek after heavy rain  today and found the creek flooded, if I was standing there right now I would be under water .

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This is the bridge where I recorded the video below , this water is bound for the southern ocean where it serves no purpose , you would think it would be better kept in the river to support blackfish and platypus , but due to heavy erosion from past clearing of the Heystbury forest it is so silted up that most of this water will not be there in a few short months.

below is some pictures of the clearing of the land in the catchment of this creek , I know this because i was on a farm cleared in the 1960 and saw this first hand.

We did this to the creek with bulldozers and stump jump ploughs , so we can fix it and I dont know why something hasn’t been done to date.

If people are serious about saving native animals such as the blackfish and platypus then here is a golden opportunity to do just that , having endless rounds of meetings and sending text to each other  will do nothing to fix the situation.

I visited the Cooriemungle creek recently and found not much has changed , this creek once held blackfish and platypus but not anymore.

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I have repeatedly asked the overseers of these rivers and creeks for action and none has been forthcoming .

for those who want more info you can call me on 0407843998.

Question do Blackfish like black crickets :

Well check out this video.

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Once again I have found broken glass bottles, and as was the case last time they were in a place where children could have easily walked on them , just think of the damage these could do to a child’s foot.

I picked these up and disposed of them like the people who put them there should have, there are bins only a hundred metres away right near the top of the boat ramp.

Today I received a telephone call from the Cobden coast times , the reporter was after a comment about a fish kill at Bullen Merri of which I knew nothing so I set off to have a look and sure enough there is a fish kill caused by oxygen starvation due to ongoing blue-green algae blooms , I have warned about this happening and I am not happy about being proved right.

Inaction by the bureaucrats over many years have led us to this and I fear we will see many more in the future if we don’t take action now.

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There were unconfirmed reports of two Bass dead as well as brown trout.

I went to Bullen Merri today in search of the lost ww1 cannon I scoured the lake edges with the side scan sonar and I found no trace of it, this was my third attempt and I am not sure it there now .

The lake was declared algae free last week and the warning signs were taken down but see what I found today.

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There were at least two farmers spreading urea on grass land inside the bowl of the lake today just before we get rain on the weekend , the farmers are not at fault here that’s what you have to do to get grass to grow however some of this will end up in the lake and add to the already high nutrient load that will cause more algae blooms early next summer.

We often talk about the riparian zone and why it’s so important to aquatic life and one of the best plants for this zone is native grasses , they are better than trees at stopping the flow of nutrient from farm land particularly if they are planted in a thick blanket along the edge of the waterway about 20/30 metres wide.

This is a good example.

this photo was taken on a neighbours property along with this ancient tree that got burnt last year.

Yesterday I went with Gene Gardener( CMA) to the lower Gellibrand river to see if we could in fact use my underwater drone to check in ( no pun intended ) on the hotels placed there some time ago, the water level was high which would make our task even harder, the aim was to see if fish have been using them and I suppose to make sure they were  intact, we first tried to find the one nearest the bridge with no luck we then moved onto the one placed near the public jetty and we found it intact in about 5 metres of water and covered in algae and other plant life, as you will see in the video the water contains vast amounts of suspended materials we also note a fish and some plastic, the structure seems to be intact and doing its job. it has been my experience that fish will run from the drone for a while and then slowly return we may not have spent a long enough time for this to happen yesterday next time I will try to sit for a while.

I have to say the river looks fantastic and as you can see the water level is quite high.

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The placement of these structures will benefit fishers and fish for years to come ,

I commend the CMA for this initiative and hope for lots more in the future. I can not quite identify the fish it could be a Tupong its the right size and shape , I would be pleased if someone could identify the fish.

( the fish is visible at about 4.41 in the right hand upper corner ).