Weekend fishing report for Ballina, Evans Head
NSW Fishing Monthly editor Tony Zann has his say on the closure of the Richmond River following recent flooding …
Disastrous fish kills in the Richmond River after the recent floods have led to the indefinite closure of the river to all forms of recreational and commercial fishing. The closure will be reviewed monthly.
The kills are a direct result of cumulative mismanagement of the floodplain by groups and individuals involved in agriculture and flood mitigation over the past 50 years or more.
While there may have been localised, isolated kills when the river was in a more natural state, these widespread fatalities involving near-zero dissolved oxygen levels on vast stretches of the river are becoming the norm after the heavy flooding common in the catchment.
Many experts now believe that it’s too late to do anything much about the issue – cold comfort to obliterated commercial and recreational fishers and a devastated tourism industry.
If it’s anything like the wash-up from the almost as awful 2001 kills, there’ll be the usual ‘stakeholder meetings’, heated finger-pointing and denials, feelgood ‘action plans’ that eventually end up in the too-hard basket and then – nothing. The river took three years to recover from that kill and the closure lasted more than six months.
Bruce at Dave’s Bait Shop is suitably rocked. He says fish have been moving up the river but as soon as they hit fresh slugs of black water, they die and litter the banks by the tonne.
Off the walls and the beaches there have been bream, whiting and flathead with Patchs Beach southwards and Flat Rock northwards producing OK.
Out wide, mahi mahi, small yellowfin tuna and mixed reef fish have been around when you can get out.
There were also kills in the Evans River about a week ago with bream, blackfish, bony bream and some huge whiting washed up dead on the beach. But the flood run-off diversion from Rocky Mouth Creek at Woodburn into the upper Evans River seems to be abating and there’s some clean water coming into the river on each high tide.
Some bream, whiting and flathead have been caught up to about the bridge. Trouble is, once the Rocky Mouth floodwater doesn’t run over the weir into the Evans, there is very little tidal replenishment in the middle and upper reaches of the river and all the black water just moves up and down with the tide.
Some jewfish and bream along the beaches and around the rocks with whiting and bream in the surf gutters.
Very little offshore activity this week but those boats which did get out caught quite reasonable snapper with some excellent blue water out wide.
Tony Zann t.zann@fishingmonthly.com.au
