In November, two of our Recreational Fishery Managers, Anthony Forster, and Mark Adams met with representatives from global tackle manufacturer Daiwa, to showcase our work in developing Lake Eildon’s amazing Murray cod fishery.
The tour started with the filming of newly hatched Murray cod fry at the Snobs Creek hatchery and, our newly built small-bodied native fish conservation hatchery. This highlighted the VFA’s work to recover both large and small bodied threatened native fish.
Next stop was on the water at Lake Eildon where Anthony was interviewed about how the VFA transformed Lake Eildon into one of the best Murray cod Fisheries in Australia by stocking 1 million Murray cod into Lake Eildon between (2010, 2011 and 2013).
By marking these Murray cod fingerlings with a food dye called Calcein, and by sampling Murray cod a few years later, we found Murray cod from this stocking project survived, grew well and accounted for around 90% of the Murray cod that were sampled. As a result of this bold stocking initiative, recreational fishers now regularly catch Murray cod between 12 to 14 years old, many of which are now 1+ metre long. To illustrate this, leading up the Murray Codference, Daiwa proanglers fished Lake Eildon and were delighted to catch a range of impressive Murray cod (60cm, 75cm, 85cm, 104cm and 104cm) in addition to some golden perch.
Buoyed by a great few days Fishing at Lake Eildon, Taka Kawasaki, Daiwa’s Product Development Manager gave a great keynote presentation at the Murray Codference about global trends in Fish freshwater fish technology. To cap it off, at the Murray Codference, we heard from legendary Murray cod fisher Colby Lesko that Lake Eildon is now the number 1 big Murray cod fishery in the country.
Daiwa are currently developing a mini documentary that will showcase Lake Eildon and how the VFA developed that fishery to the world. This could not only promote Lake Eildon’s fishery management outcome, but it could also spur on national and international interest in Lake Eildon as a destination fishery.