Murray River 13/5/17

[KenR]

I was a passenger on a smallish pontoon boat yesterday 13/5 out of Echuca. The river is extremely low and we had 5 or 6 most likely skeg on log strikes as well as 2 solid prop on river bed strikes as well as digging the skeg in just off the boat ramp. Just a heads up for anybody boating on the Murray.
The water level is that low there is lots of rusty coloured seepage from a higher level down to the waterline. I am guessing that the water table is higher than river level.
Also the Maritime guys are red hot. One "lucky" punter who appeared to be on a houseboat weekend with mates was nabbed in their tinny. I didn't hear all the conversation he was having with those on our upper deck; but there was 3 of out of date life jacket inspections at $250 each, something at $375 and I think another fine. Costly weekend.

An interested thing; a couple of miles up stream from the port there was patches of small silver fish (up to about 4" long) jumpin/breaching. I don't know what species they were; the old eyes have faded a bit too much. I wonder if something big and hungry was monstering them? It was a smaller scale of salt water bait fish being harassed.

Ken

[MickCov]

G'day Ken.
Really interesting info there,it's a great stretch of water up there and have heard of some massive Murray cod being caught around Barmah not to long ago :thumbsup:

[Texas]

Thanks for that Ken,
The water table is about 1 metre below the surface, kept in check by pumps (I read somewhere).
Many years ago at the Golden Cow in Tongala (now closed), it was 1 foot from the surface.
If it hits the surface, you will be able to buy, very cheap, but, useless land.
Cheers
Gra

[KenR]

Texas,

Yep, know all about the ground water problem. I live among it; about 25km towards Shepparton from Tongala. It is an unfortunate fact of life here. There are 2 groundwater pumps within 600 metres of my property and another one about 1.5km away. The water table on my property averages about 2.2metres; while in places up toward the Goulburn River it is 300mm and extremely salty. In fact that salty there were discussions about excavating large ponds and farming saltwater fish.

Ken

[Texas]

Thanks again Ken,
Ground water has mineral salt, not sea salt.
Are they that similar that you could grow say mullet in ground water.
There's at least 3 people on this site, that will know the answer.

Cheers
Gra

[KenR]

These "proposals" were put forward a few years ago for suitable use of high water tables and salt degraded land. One of the government agencies was involved; so that was most likely a recipe for disaster in itself. I can't remember the species involved, but seem to recall mention of "lower" classes of fish. The fish had to also contend with very hot summer water temperatures and shallow ponds. I think that that it was mentioned that higher quality table fish such as bream and snapper were not suitable.

Maybe they should have farmed the carp and exported the garbage. People overseas seen to like it.

Ken

[Texas]

These "proposals" were put forward a few years ago for suitable use of high water tables and salt degraded land. One of the government agencies was involved; so that was most likely a recipe for disaster in itself. I can't remember the species involved, but seem to recall mention of "lower" classes of fish. The fish had to also contend with very hot summer water temperatures and shallow ponds. I think that that it was mentioned that higher quality table fish such as bream and snapper were not suitable.

Maybe they should have farmed the carp and exported the garbage. People overseas seen to like it.

Ken

$6.99 a kilo at local fishmonger, last time I looked