River Blackfish in Qld?

[PumpyChowdown]

Hi all,

As a kid I grew up in Victoria and just about every weekend my old man and I would travel up to the Thompson river, set up camp and fish all weekend. The catch was generally plentiful and consisted of Brown and Rainbow trout and the magnificent River Blackfish.

Now let me assure you, that a freshly caught Blackie, cooked over the open flames in a pan with some butter, salt and pepper, is one of the most glorious culinary events that your taste buds can take part in.

Now, I am fully aware that they are STRICTLY a NO TAKE species in Qld, and I would have no intention of doing so. I would though, love to catch another one (assuming the law permits me to do so) and then experience the joy of a quick picture and slipping him back into the water.

Where in SEQld can I do this? My research indicates that the Condamine is just about the only place this far north that holds them. Is this true? Has anyone ever caught one? And lucky last question; just how endangered are they in Qld?

[kriso]

wow i cant answer any of your questions but there a beutiful fish thats for sure!

[Little Grey Men]

I grew up fishing the Condamine and can honestly say I've never seen one of those before !! What type of fish is it. Perch, giant gudgeon ?

I might do some Googlin'

[Bommie]

storm king dam and severn river(the one in qld. not the one in nsw), near stanthorpe has them

[fishing_hardcore]

I used to catch somthing similar when trout fishing, we used to call them Blue gut mountain trout, but they never grew bigger than 20cm.

cheers

[PumpyChowdown]

Little Grey Men wrote:

I grew up fishing the Condamine and can honestly say I've never seen one of those before !! What type of fish is it. Perch, giant gudgeon ?

I might do some Googlin'

Excellent question, and one I've never really given much thought to. Wikipedia has this to say:

The similarities between the Gadopsis blackfish and the Maccullochella cods (such as the Murray cod, Maccullochella peelii) are striking. There are some grounds for believing that Blackfish may be in effect a smaller version of Murray cod, inhabiting similar niches to Murray cod but in habitats that are too small for Murray cod (having said this, their distributions originally overlapped substantially), and there are grounds for believing that blackfish and Murray cod have drawn heavily on common genes at the family level. FishBase, for instance, has scrapped the family Gadopsidae and listed the blackfishes as members of the temperate perch family, Percichthyidae. A mitochondrial DNA study has confirmed a relationship between the Blackfish and the Percichthyidae but the exact relationship was not resolved in that study (Jerry et al., 2001). Further study is needed to resolve the relationship between the blackfish and the Percichthyidae.

So essentially, no one knows quite what they are! Truly a native of this land. Interestingly, there are two distinct species marked by the Great Divinding Range. The southern species (the ones I caught when I was little) grow much larger and are far more common. As far as I know, there are no restrictions on taking them in Victoria, however NSW, ACT and QLD are all strictly NO TAKE due to the scarcity of them.

[Aaron H]

Aaagh Gadopsis Marmoratus the fish I actually conducted my major study project on at Uni around ten years ago. Caught many of them at night in the Gellibrand river and also in the creeks up near Tatong, unfortunately have not chased them up here yet but have heard that a population exists above Killarney heading towards Queen Victoria Falls, I think its called Spring Creek?. Have to agree for a native fish they are great eating although I think it is a smaller species up here than the 2kg plus ones we used to get in Vic and Tassie. Would love to here your results if u chase them up here