Catching Yabbies in the Murray River

We have had some wild weather in these parts over the last 6 months.  Power outages, fallen trees and storm damage have been a regular occurrence but, as with most things, there is also a silver lining somewhere to be found amongst the misfortune.  In this case, the rainfall has been very good throughout the south eastern parts of Australia in the second half of 2016 resulting in water catchment dams and reservoirs now being full or near full and water flows through the river systems are strong.  Good water flows in the rivers means that Australia's freshwater crustacean, the Yabby, comes out in large numbers.  The Yabby is somewhat like the North American Crawfish.  They look just like a miniature lobster but are in actual fact about the size of an average ocean prawn.



Australian 'Yabby'

With word of yabbies being 'on the bite' we decided to head to the sleepy little town of Kingston-on-Murray (on the Murray River) to try our luck.  So it was early in the morning of what was forecast to be a hot 35°C Sunday that we set off with our four 'Opera House' yabby traps (they look a little like the Sydney Opera House when opened up), and some old roast chicken carcasses to use as bait.

We drove to Kingston on Murray to drop some Yabby traps into the river

A quick 200 km drive up the highway from Adelaide towards the South Australian Riverland and we were at our destination just before 10am with traps in the water shortly thereafter.  You are legally entitled to have 3 nets each in the water at any one time so with two traps each we kept everything legal!

While we waited for the yabbies to 'sniff out' the bait, Heather did some metal detecting along the river bank and I went and bought a Sunday newspaper to read under a nice shady tree.

About an hour and a half later, Heather returned with a 1950 Kangaroo Penny that she had detected below the ground at the base of a big old River Red Gum tree.

A 1950 Kangaroo Penny (this is not the actual coin Heather found but is an image I got from Google)

After cleaning the coin a bit, we decided to check our yabby traps/pots.  When we first started pulling on their ropes, they were heavy and we started to get all excited!  Unfortunately the weight was due to what must have been nearly 100 small (5 - 10cm bait fish size) European Carp that had swarmed into each trap to try some chicken.  This fish is yet another sorry example of a species introduced to Australia that has run-amok and is now choking out the native river fish species.  Adding insult to injury is the fact that they do not make for good eating so why were they introduced in the first place?  Anyway, due to carp being an officially designated pest it is illegal to return them live to the water so we tipped the contents of our pots onto the bank of the river and let the sun do the rest - that was our good environmental deed for the week.

Luckily, amongst the mass of bait fish was a yabby or two per pot, so we picked them out and put them in our collection bucket then dropped the empty pots with their remaining bait back into the water for another hour.  We repeated this cycle a couple more times, complete with the carp culling, before calling it a day and returning home.

A couple more than a dozen Yabbies to take home for dinner!

Not sure who looks more worried - The Yabby or Heather?

Grant alongside the river with a couple of Yabbies pulled from a trap

Remember that if you click on a photo it should enlarge a bit for you - it will make the yabbies look bigger too!

In all we brought home 14 yabbies which is enough to know whether we have a taste for them or not.  If we like them we sure know where to go to get some more.  Next time we might even take the caravan and make a full weekend of it rather than a 400 km day trip!

That's all for now.
Stay safe and stay tuned for the next edition of WTF? - Where are The Farrows?