Anglers Access
Craigbourne Road to remain open On Saturday 1 December 2018, the Southern Midlands Council published a Public Notice seeking feedback on a proposed permanent closure of a section of the Craigbourne Road.
The road closure would have resulted in no public access to the eastern side of the dam, restricting access to the western side only.
The Council discussed the proposal at meeting of 23 January. Neil Morrow, Manager Anglers Access made representation to the Council.
The Council voted unanimously to keep Craigbourne Road open to the public.
The IFS thanks the community for their overwhelming support in keeping this important public access open for anglers and other recreational users.
Anglers accessing the dam should respect private land and adhere to the access rules at all times.
Recreational Boating Fund (RBF)
MAST completed an upgrade of the Tungatinah Lagoon boat ramp on Friday 8 March.
Funded through the RBF and Hydro Tasmania with support from the IFS. the project involved realigning the ramp, consolidating the base and sheeting with Flexmat concrete sheets.
The navigation light has been repositioned to reflect the new alignment.
The new ramp will allow boats to be launched down to 3.3m below FSL. The old gravel ramp allowed launching down to 2.5m below FSL.
The IFS is supporting a 2019 RBF application for the installation of a pontoon at Lake Leake.
Cumbungi control at Four Springs Lake
On Tuesday 8 January 2019, we went with Anglers Alliance Tasmania to Four Springs Lake to see the results of the cumbungi control done in January 2018.
We surveyed the eight sites sprayed last year. At two of the sites, eradication was 100% successful. The remaining six sites have small areas of regrowth. These have been re-treated with low toxicity biactive herbicide.
The highlight was that the largest area, which was treated by manually slashing the stems 150 mm below the water surface in January and March, resulted in 100% eradication.
We will survey all sites again in in January 2020.
Native Fish Conservation
Saddled Galaxias at Woods Lake We did a follow up survey for the Saddled galaxias at Woods Lake in early December 2018. This species is normally common within Woods Lake but during a routine survey in October 2018, we didn’t find any. This is unusual.
In the December survey, we found just 13 individuals. This is a 73% decline in the average number captured across the long term monitoring over the past 20 years. We will keep a close eye on this species.
Floods Creek
In late January, we did a survey on behalf Tasmanian Irrigation at Floods Creek. The survey was looking for redfin perch and trout.
Using backpack electro-fishers we surveyed 1.5 kms of the creek. The irrigation pond was surveyed with fyke nets. Other than a small number of eels and the freshwater crayfish Astacopsis franklinii, no other fish were found.
Unfortunately, we have not found Swan galaxias at this site since 2012.
