THE Mount Isa Fish Stocking Group has released 5000 sooty grunters into Lake Moondarra.
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It will release another large amount of barramundi fingerlings during the upcoming Lake Moondarra Fishing Classic to be held next month.
Event coordinator Jeff Magnus said the barramundi will be released at Black Rock during the Friday and Saturday of the competition. Children will be able to help release the fish.
“That will be interesting for those that have not seen the work of the Mount Isa Fish Stocking Group,” Mr Magnus said.
“It will be interesting to see the size of the fish we have hung onto for 10 months.
“We originally purchased them at about two centimetres and held onto them and grew them. They are 300 millimetres average.”
The fishing classic is held from October 27 to 29. Mr Magnus said organisers were preparing the logistics for the event.
He confirmed the $50,000 tagged barra will return this year. The barramundi is tagged and released into the lake. Last year the envelope containing confirmation of the tag’s number was locked in the police district superintendent’s safe.
Other prize categories including the biggest barra caught by a male. This year there would be a prize for a barra caught by a female.
There will also be the junior and adult categories for other fish caught as well as the mystery weight prize.
New to the competition this year is the corporate competition sponsored by Clancy Corporation.
Fishermen can tick a box and fish on behalf of the company that they work for.
Mr Magnus said fish released by the fish stocking group would have little impact on the competition results. Yet he predicted good weights caught during the competition judging from the catches recorded during winter.
“They are way too small to be a winning catch by any means but still there are good catches coming out of the dam at the moment,” Mr Magnus said.
“One (caught barra) was just recently 130 centimetres and that was a fishing addict member. So there’s some really big and good catches being recorded at this time.”
“And that bodes well for the competition at the end of October.