Professional European carp catcher Keith Bell has been busy again relocating native fish from doomed Greens Lake at Corop.
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Mr Bell and his team were recalled to the lake after Easter on a new contract from the lake’s owner, Goulburn-Murray Water, to again catch the native fish and have them relocated by Victorian Fisheries Authority to the Waranga Basin, Goulburn River and Acardia Hatchery.
Mr Bell’s team was first hired to relocate cod and yellowbelly from the lake in early March and he had concerns then that if more rescue operations weren’t carried out there would be an alarming fish kill in the decommissioned lake as its waters continued to recede.
Mr Bell said in the latest operation, 20 Murray cod, most over a metre long — the biggest measuring 1.25m — and over 140 yellowbelly up to 6.5kg had been caught and relocated.
But Mr Bell said only a few large redfin, which has been a target for anglers over the years, had been caught.
He said the reason for this was that when there was an explosion of redfin numbers the bigger redfin developed a virus, which kills them. When this happens, just the smaller redfin survive and it takes time to build up numbers again. And that’s what’s been happening at the lake in recent years
While the latest four-week contract with Goulburn-Murray Water to relocate the fish runs out at the end of this month, Mr Bell intends to stay on for another month at the lake at his own expense to keep relocating the native fish to do his bit for the environment.
Mr Bell has predicted that unless there is torrential rainfall, with floodwaters finding their way into the lake through natural courses, the lake will not be able to support fish beyond next year.
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