Donuts at the c-hole

[Milk man]

Fished the Yarra at the c-hole with shaynebennett this morning. I was planning on fishing balnarring but decided to hit up the yarra.. Turns out balnarring probably would have been the better option cos we caught sweet FA.. We used cheese and scrubbies and managed 1 bite in 3 hours while standing around in about a 3-4 degree foggy winter morning :down: .. This spot hasn't been producing like it did last last year which it disappointing.. We've spoken to another guy that fishes here and he reckons he's seen people catching and keeping anything they catch including cod and maccas.. Looks like we may need to find a new spot if this keeps up :roll:

[andyk]

Look if the fish are of legal size and the fishermen are licensed and they dont take more than there bag whats the problem ????????

[deathray]

I would only ever bother chasing natives in that area between about October and March. You might get the odd fish now but you need warmer water to fire them up. It's just the time of year in my humble opinion.

[Milk man]

Look if the fish are of legal size and the fishermen are licensed and they dont take more than there bag whats the problem ????????

The problem is there's nothing for me to catch lol

I would only ever bother chasing natives in that area between about October and March. You might get the odd fish now but you need warmer water to fire them up. It's just the time of year in my humble opinion.

We did pretty well in the colder months last year

[Tyler]

The problem with keeping everything you catch in the yarra is that it's not a stocked river and won't be in the foreseeable future...

I've tried a couple of spots that usually produce on the yarra the last fortnight for donuts as well, with it flowing so high and fast and the water temp down seems a lot of the fish have shut down.
But on top of the piles of rubbish I've also found opera house nets and hooked what looked like the remnants of a gill net so not impressed.

[ChrisD]

Had the same problem at my usual yarra haunts over summer, it was clear they had been over fished. But as andyk points out if they aren't breaking the rules they can take what they catch. I just found I had to go looking for those harder to find places, where the general riff-raff can't be bothered trying to go. Might mean a bit of a walk, or a little bush bashing, but the results are normally worth the effort.......oh and then I keep the spot to myself

[ducky]

Sorry to hear you donnuted mate.

I'll play devils advocate here. Say you caught fish but didn't report to the wider community and everyone who fished it did the same would you think it would be getting as much fishing pressure? I'm only asking because the Yarra cod have really become public in the past 12 months and there's a lot complaining about fish stocks not being what they were even a short time ago.

[Tyler]

Spot on ducky. That's why I don't put photos of anything I catch in the yarra online.

The amount of attention the yarra gets on Facebook fishing pages means every tom **** and Harry know there's good cod in there. Articles in newspapers and magazines don't help either and it always gets a flogging after they appear.