Members of the Bathurst RSL Fishing Club received a reply from the Minister for Fisheries, Ian Macdonald tabled last week saying that while carp fishing events have some merit, other methods of controlling carp are considered to be more effective.

The club had written to Mr Macdonald through Member for Bathurst Gerard Martin some months ago calling on Mr Macdonald and his department to recognise the great opportunity to bring communities across NSW together to reduce numbers of feral fish.

Mr Macdonald was asked to declare Feral Fish Week in the first week of November each year to motivate anglers to capture carp and redfin in every town where there is river or dam with a feral fish problem.

This request to the minister followed the success of numbers of annual recreational fishing initiatives in NSW, including Bathurst to concentrate on the capture of European Carp that have invaded waterways and impoundments in plague

proportions.

In Bathurst’s first Carp Blitz held on the Macquarie River last year 250 mostly schoolchildren fished for carp and redfin landing carp seven kilograms in weight, with a second blitz planned for Sunday, November 2 on the Macquarie.

On the same day that Bathurst’s first blitz on feral fish was held with capture of 50 fish on a wet day, a Carp Classic was held on the Manly Dam.

Fly Fish Bathurst and Orange fly fishers have for the past few years conducted annual events in March at Wyangala Dam where hundreds of carp have been removed from the lake. One individual fly fisher has now captured more than 2000 carp from Wyangala alone.

In the wake of the Bathurst and Manly family outings to target feral fish species there have been two Carp Muster’s held on the Darling River and its tributaries around Bourke and Brewarrina in Western NSW and other carp events in the north at Inverell and south at Morundah and Wagga Wagga.

* The author is president of the Bathurst RSL Fishing Club.