Shared benefits from environmental watering - Recreational uses (Angling) by Jarod Lyon (ARI) in collaboration with Rob Loates (VR Fish)

1. Shared benefits from environmental
watering – Recreational uses
Case Study: Angling
Jarod Lyon (ARI), Rob Loates (VRFish), Anthony
Forster (Fisheries)
Acknowledgments for Historical records: William Trueman (2007). SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF NATIVE
FISH IN THE MURRAY-DARLING SYSTEM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE TROUT
COD Maccullochella macquariensis

2. Background
•All sorts of recreational users for whom water is important
– Environmental water is part of this mix
– We focus here on fish and fisheries
– Cultural importance picked up in another presentation
•Why are fish & fishers important?
•What are the key things fisho’s (anglers, researchers and managers)
care about when it comes to environmental watering in Victoria?
•What are the key things we are doing that environmental water
managers might want to know about?
•What are the best ways to further involve fisho’s in the Victorian
environmental watering program?
•Our key questions to the VEWH

3. History
Trout cod – Mitta
@ Gibbo Park,
circa 1935
“Grandpa” Pendergast was over ninety years of age when I called to talk to
him in Wodonga…. Grandpa Pendergast had fished out of Omeo in the Big
River or headwaters of the Mitta Mitta River, to the eastern side of the
mountains. The expeditions in his youth had been by horse-drawn vehicle in
an area where even summer temperatures at night can produce ‘brass
monkey’ conditions. He said they would get to the river on the first day and
sometimes catch enough blue nose and white eye on he first night to be on
the way home in the pre-dawn chill of the next day. He said, as any old
white eye or cod fisherman might say, “You know they bite best at night”

4. Why are fish important?
• We have all of this historical information, because people
value fish
– They have huge community support
• Vocal angling lobby with whom DSE and CMA’s are increasingly
working in partnership
• Particularly in regional areas
• Provide a fantastic link to other key stakeholders (ie farmers as
anglers)
• We need to view them not just as fish, but as the ‘end
product’ of investment in water and catchments

5. Why is fishing important?
• 720,000
Victorian fishers
• 5,000 jobs in
regional Victoria
• $820 million
direct annual
expenditure
• 200 angling
clubs
• Habitat stewards

6. Water and fish
• They live in it!
• Every water decision impacts them
• Competing demands
• Conservation vs fishery objectives
• Negatives and positives
– Creation of impoundment fisheries +ve
– Tailrace trout fisheries +ve
– Unseasonal flow - ve

7. E-Water and fish
• Aim to mimic components of a river’s natural
flow regime
• Limited volume water available
• Need to maximise ecological and fishery
benefits
• Environmental flow objectives for fish
– often aimed at enhancing fish populations via:
• Stimulate spawning
• Increase productivity (thus, growth and survival)
• dispersal between habitats
• habitat maintenance

8. Wimmera River Drought refuge
2.6 GL released for: threatened
catfish, reduce salinity and risk of
fish kills, protect riparian
bottlebrush

9. Barmah environmental flood releases (2000, 2005)

10. Golden Perch breeding
Enviro
Flood

11. What are the key things fisho’s care about when it comes to
environmental watering in Victoria?
• Healthy, self sustaining fish stocks, which support
recreational angling
• Smart decision making based on evidence and
experience
• Real outcomes
• Reduced impacts on fisheries from floodplain watering
(ie blackwater)
• Evidence that it works – recovering fish stocks (better
fishing)

12. Shared benefits of ewatering
• Currently watering based around conservation objectives
– Conservation/fisheries objectives align
• Growth and survival of stocked fish
• Movement of fish through fishways
• Flow around Habitat (and restored habitat)
• Lateral connectivity
• Trout/Impoundment fisheries

13. What are the key things we are doing that environmental
water managers might want to know about?
• Increasing interest (and investment) in fish habitat
• Getting best bang for buck from reducing resources
(RFL)
• Stocking (rebuilding threatened species)
• Understanding limiting factors to native fish recruitment

14. What are the best ways to further involve fisho’s in
the Victorian environmental watering program?
• Establish reference group (build awareness & advocacy)
• Demonstrate benefits (returns on stocking, habitat and
water investments)
• Direct participation (monitoring / surveys)
• Celebrate & publish good ewater news to the angling
fraternity
• Improve social media
• Target fishing media / opinion leaders