The relocation of native fish from decommissioned Greens Lake at Corop has started, but just when it will finish is the burning question.
Goulburn-Murray Water is financing the project with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Victorian Fisheries’ Authority and the Taungurung Land and Waters Council also having input in the transferring of native fish — Murray cod and Golden Perch (yellowbelly) — to other sustainable waterways.
The key man in the current operation, Keith Bell, a private professional European carp catcher, who has been commissioned to net the fish for transportation, believes a lot of native fish could be left to die in the lake if the fish catches aren’t continued.
‘‘My contract runs out this Friday and although we have caught and located a lot of fish in the past week we won’t get them all,“ he said.
Mr Bell is using a large seine dragnet — 600m in length — and up to the weekend had caught five large cod, some over a metre long, and yellowbelly up to 5.50kg plus a multitude of carp, which he will process for himself.
Strangely enough Keith has netted only a few redfin, which have been the primary target for anglers over the years in the lake and at times have been bountiful.
Mr Bell predicted the lake woouldn’t go dry this year but without inflows he believes there won’t be much water left in it this time next year. And by that time a lot of the fish he’ll miss will have perished if there is no on-going netting.
But he said the amount of carp he had been extracting would help increase the lifespan of the native fish in the lake because they would have less competition for food.
Greens Lake has been a G-MW storage compound, commissioned in 1966, which has been filled off the Mallee Western Channel but the removal of pumps last year means water can no longer be transferred back into the channel.
Only a huge flood event could save the lake in the current situation.
Floodwaters from the Heathcote area through the Cornella Creek system would need to be sufficient to cause overflows into the now dry Lake Cooper and adjoining Gaynors and Horseshoe swamps before there could be any fresh inflows into Greens Lake.
That possibly is a longshot but a lot of the lake’s users — anglers, campers, bird watchers, water skiers and nature lovers — over the past 56 years will hoping and praying it comes off.