Lake Tyers

[re-tyred]

The lake is full and close to breaking out.

[CarlG]

The lake is full and close to breaking out.

Awesome pic mate.

[fishnut]

Fishing should be great when it does,maybe some nice jewies at the entrance and hopefully it stays open till prawn season so the spawn can come in

[Kimtown]

About god damn time

I was there literally 2 or 3 weeks ago and it was so low... a football field could have fit between the ocean and the lake, so obviously east gippy has been hammered with rain the last couple of weeks

[CannonsJS]

Wow. I might take a look this afternoon.

[DougieK]

Hey Re-tyred, you'll know.

I see an awful lot of commentary in various social media and fishing media about 'the lake should be opened' etc all up and down the coast for different estuaries. While I understand the basic concept of opening and closing and why it happens, i'm wondering if you could give us some insight into the pros and cons of artificially opening estuaries (not just this one but in general) and when/why this should/shouldn't be done.

[Texas]

40 years ago, Bemm River was opened by locals, because if it was left to the "authority", the town would go underwater.
Yeah Dougie, I've heard very broad opinions on the pros and cons
Gra

[re-tyred]

The lake is about 1 metre below the level it would go naturally. This might not sound much but is probably only half the water volume it needs. So unlikely to go unless we get a good storm that puts waves over the barrier or a lot more rain.
Natural opening would be the best because it could go a year or so with good brackish water. This would allow bream to breed in the whole lake, not just a narrow band in the upper reaches.
This applies to all of the lakes in East Gippsland. Problem is human development was allowed on the natural flood plains. So now we have to open them to avoid flooding

[4liters]

I don’t know if it applies in Vic but I recall a couple of lakes in NSW that got opened early and they ended up anoxic which killed a bunch of fish. It was something to do with there not being enough water coming down the creeks to properly flush the system I think, but I don’t know the specifics.

[re-tyred]

Low water volume and still water, lead to large temperature and nutrient spikes. So the small lakes that empty into the ocean in spring, then close and not get much more water into them, go into summer in a vulnerable position. Lake Tyers will be better if it stays closed unless we get high spring rainfall.
The larger systems such as the Gippsland Lakes Snowy estuary and mallacoota have enough size to somewhat protect them from this.
Biggest issue in the estuaries these days is the lack of fresh flows in the rivers due to us all taking the water out for both farms and cities/towns.
Mallacoota Marlo and The Gippsland Lakes almost never closed in their natural state. Marlo and Mallacoota now close regularly and protect themselves from excessive salt water. This means Bream still do well. Gippsland lakes bream fishery started to die in the 1980s. The last major breading event was in the late 80s. With the large volumes of freshwater taken out of the rivers, it now no longer supports bream. We cannot let the entrance close because a huge area of the old flood plain has houses, towns and farms on it.