AFTER years of very little action, local anglers are lining the banks of the Castlereagh – each a safe distance apart – to take advantage of the river’s welcome harvest.
On Sunday 20 April around 30 fishermen at a time could be found spread around The Cutting, at the end of Tooloon Street in Coonamble and even on Monday morning half a dozen had set up on the east and west banks.
After weeks of good fishing, and another flush after the rain on Good Friday, the river continues to reward skilled fishermen and patient amateurs on a daily basis.
“They’ve caught hundreds here since the rain,” said Kenny Blattman. “This is only my third time out this year.”
He already had a good-sized yellowbelly in his pot.
“I’m getting out of lockdown and just getting a couple for me and my mum.”
Mrs Blattman, who turned 90 recently, still enjoys a breakfast of pan fried yellowbelly.
Everyone agrees that the yellowbelly is good eating, whether pan fried or baked in foil with lemon and tomato.
Wayne Blattman, who said he also caught a six pound cod there a couple of weeks ago, says the yellowbelly is still the main catch in Coonamble.
“You do get the odd black bream,” said Wayne. “But they’re a lot harder to catch; they’ve got a small mouth.”
On Monday morning he had caught five small and missed one decent yellowbelly in about an hour but the fun is not over.
“In three or four days the water will settle and go nice and clear and you’ll be able to use lures,” he said.
Apparently there are other good fishing holes under the bridge and a bit further south behind the shire library but they’re hard to access, so a boat is needed.
Luke and seven year old Mikah Day pulled in a half-grown yellowbelly within half an hour of setting up at The Cutting on Monday and we took photographic evidence before it was thrown back in.
Yellowbelly have been recorded up to 76 cm in length and 23 kg in weight. However, they are commonly measured between 40-50 cm in length and 5 kg in weight.
The yellowbelly is known to be moody and Wayne Blattman says they’ll “spit out” the hook for little or no reason but there is nothing fancy about the bait required.
“We’re just using worms out of our backyard,” the Days said.
Twelve year old Jakobi Rutherford was also set up with a good supply of worms and everyone agreed that yabbies and small shrimp were also good bait.
The scientific name of the yellowbelly or golden perch is Macquaria ambigua and it was first collected by a European scientist in the Macquarie River in 1845.
Naturally, Indigenous people across it’s vast habitat in the Macquarie-Darling, Fitzroy River and Lake Eyre basins, were already well acquainted with the fish the Gamilaraay called ‘thagaay’.
The top of their rounded body can be green to light brown, while the lower section of “the belly” is yellow.
The golden perch are sometimes confused with Macquarie perch (Macquaria australasica), however golden perch have a concave forehead and protruding lower jaw.
One thing that is clear is that they are a tough species, well-adapted to live in extreme heat and drought.
None of the fishermen the Coonamble Times spoke to this week pretended to know just how the well-grown yellowbelly could be so plentiful in the Castlereagh right now, although the theory of them surviving in saturated areas of sand was the most common guess.
But native fish have many talents.
Experienced angler Glen Eason said that just a couple of years ago he had caught his first tagged yellowbelly at The Cutting and, when he rang to report it, was told that it had been tagged at Brewarrina 18months earlier.
It turns out that the yellowbelly is a renowned traveller and has been known to travel 1000kilometres to spawn up river.
Although the current crop of yellowbelly seems to just keep on giving, limits do apply.
The legal minimum size these days is 30cm and the daily limit is 5 per person.
Only two attended lines are permitted and the lines must be within 50 metres, in your sight and have no more than 2 hooks per line.
We hope to bring you more fun facts about Coonamble’s favourite fish and how they survived the drought in future editions of the Coonamble Times.