A $38,000 grant has been awarded to the North East Catchment Management Authority through the Victorian Government’s Recreational Fishing Grants Fund.
The project is supported by the Australian Trout Foundation and other angling groups, as well as the Victorian Fisheries Authority and Alpine Shire Council.
North East CMA will provide technical oversight of the work at Mayfly Rise, below Jack’s Swimming Hole at Bright.
The site is named for the insects which form a significant part of the trout food supply.
The project includes:
- Installing large boulders, or ‘bed seeding’, to create greater viability in flows, leading to scour-pool development and the creation of fish resting areas.
- Installing log jams to create further habitat niches, trap sediments, encourage aquatic plant growth and create better flows.
- Establishing indigenous shading vegetation to enhance in-stream cover and insect activity.
- Creating more challenging and interesting fishing experiences by developing a range of habitats requiring different angling techniques.
Alpine Fly Fishers secretary Billy Hinton said the stretch of the river was, like many in the district, badly impacted by gold dredging of the previous century.
“The dredging left wide shallow sections without shelter, which sustains little aquatic food, and which can become too warm for most fish species,” Mr Hinton said.
“This grant, from Recreational Fishing Grants Fund, will allow us to try and re-create something resembling the river as it was in earlier days with deeper holes and runs.
“This will give variability and create shade and shelter for trout and other fish species.
“It will improve conditions for aquatic insect species which form part of the fishes’ food chain and therefore will also benefit other aquatic fauna such as platypus and freshwater crayfish.”
North East CMA is removing rusty railway iron from the river at the Mayfly Rise site.
In the past, river management practices included using railway iron as a material when constructing river rehabilitation projects to pin and secure logs and other erosion management materials.
The railway iron can pose a health and safety risk to the public who use the river for recreation.
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