Major sponsors Explore Outdoors, the Daily Liberal and The Garden Hotel Fishing Club have this week announced that the restocking initiative is off to a solid start, and hopes are high that the fund thermometer will continue to climb as Christmas sneaks closer and closer.
The dollar-for-dollar native fish stocking program was introduced in 1998 to enable community groups to apply to the NSW Recreational Fishing (freshwater) Trust for matching funds to purchase native fish from licensed commercial hatcheries in NSW, for stocking rivers and dams across the State.
It is Dubbo Catches and the Garden Hotel Fishing Club’s intention to apply to restock the Macquarie River with Murray cod and/or yellowbelly in the coming stocking seasons through the NSW DPI Dollar-for-Dollar Native Stocking Program.
Any local businesses or community members who would like to donate are asked to do so in coming weeks, and are not only invited to donate money, but also goods, services or products that may be raffled or auctioned by the organisors to help raise funds.
The following businesses have contributed so far:
House of Ironbark $500
The Garden Hotel $500
Astley’s Plumbing and Hardware $500
Frank Cross Tyres $500
The Pastoral Hotel $500
Crampton’s Carpets $500
Dubbo Meat and Seafood Centre $500
Opposite Lock $500
Rocla Rural Products $400
o o o
Yellowbelly have well and truly fired up in just about all of the Tamworth district impoundments, including Splitrock, Keepit and Chaffey.
Just prior to a large storm that swept through the region over the weekend, yellowbelly were practically jumping in the boat from all reports.
Anglers were catching them on bait, fly and with lures in the top metre of the water column.
Fly anglers at Chaffey Dam, which is 90 per cent full, were slow stripping pink and black deceivers just a metre down and had a ball as the perch looked to feed and sun themselves in the warm water.
o o o
Staff at Copeton Waters State Park have their fingers crossed for a good dump of rain as a large fresh is required to halt the spread of some persistant algae outbreaks. With the algae warning level sitting at 20, anglers are advised to wash their catch in fresh water before preparing it for the table.
The public have still been swimming, skiing, and boating at the dam, but have had to avoid murky sections. A large number of fisherman hit the water as the weather has warmed up significantly in the past few weeks, with some nice eating-sized yellowbelly, and some out-of-season cod turning up which were released straight away.
o o o
Ten-year-old Dubbo junior angler Harriet Crowley attended the Port Macquarie Game Fishing Clubs annual presentation day during August and was awarded junior small fry angler for her achievements during the year.
Harriet fished in the Shoot Out competition at Port Stephens and The Great Lakes Game Fishing Competition, where she managed to capture a solid marlin and six dolphin fish.
After fishing in two competitions for the season, Harriet was also ranked sixth in Australia for her season in the small fry category.
Harriet has renewed her membership for the 2008-09 game fishing season which started in July, and will fish as a member of the Port Macquarie Game Fishing Club.
Harriet will now compete in the small fry category again as she will still be under-11 years of age.
Harriet will be competing in the Hot Current Competition in Coffs Harbour in October, The Golden Lure in Port Macquarie in January, the Lure Shootout in Port Stephens in February and the Great Lakes Game Fishing Club tournament in April.
Harriet is also hoping to get points up for her tournament total by fishing on her father’s boat ‘Backed Up’ throughout the year which will allow her to get points for the national championships.
Congratulations Harriet from the team at Dubbo Catches, we look forward to hearing about your future success.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff