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This was a day of great interest to locals. While many people enjoy Lake Tyers from all sorts of angles this was the first time that a big scientific project had been undertaken.

The underlying concept in the project is that the prawn population in the lake is a major link in the food chain. Consequently this governs the recreational fishing success with fish such as Bream and Flathead. As these fish rely on prawns as a major food source, more prawns should equal more fish and better catches. The other factor taken into account is that the lake opens very irregularly and consequently whole seasons can pass before new prawn larvae are swept in by the lake breaching to the sea.

Hopefully if the Bream and Flathead don't get them all, there will be some left over for us!!!

Anybody with a background in Biology will appreciate the long hours and hard work, not to mention expensive equipment that has lead to this project getting off the ground.

Notably the Bait Fishing licensee will not operate during the study time and this mean the mass harvesting of prawns by netting will not occur.

This should be a great boost to the lake and if prawn larvae production costs can be minimised with modern streamlined technology we could see definite advantages to the "man in the street" fisher.

Well done lads!!!  

Boosting Lake Tyers Prawn Stocks

Recently the University of New South Wales developed a  plan to boost the stocks of King Prawns in Lake Tyers by releasing 300,000 post larval prawns (about 10 mm long at that stage, and look like miniature prawns) into the lake.  The project is being led by Chris Setio, and working under Professor Iain Suthers and Dr James Smith.  This project is the first for any waters in Victoria and has only been attempted in a few times in other states.
On Wednesday the 23rd of January 2013 local fishing groups and other interested people were invited to a symbolic release of the last bags of prawns at the Number 2 Boat Ramp The lake has opened early June 2013 and while the lake went from very, very low to breakout in 5 days of heavy rain, we were lucky there was no great storm associated with it.  However as can been seen below the initial heavy outflowing currents did do some damage to the weedbeds the prawns are known to associate with. Time will tell whether this has a significant effect.  It does show though, that the weed is a significant niche in the lake.
Storm damaged Weed at Lake Tyers Beach sandbar
Below is what the weed beds looked like in early January 2014, very healthy. (near Camerons#1)
Weed Beds at Lake Tyers Beach
Latest comment from Dr James Smith: "In April (2013) we found some large adults that were at least 12-18 months old. They were massive, and a sign that the lake is good prawn habitat. We also found some young ones - probably not the ones we stocked, but we're not sure. The next 6 months should reveal more as Chris does further sampling and we run tests on the prawns we catch. So stay tuned!"
  28th May 2103

Tim Bull MLA and Chris Setio releasing the last prawns
Chris Setio,  Dr James Smith and Tim Bull MLA releasing the very last bag of prawns.		 Prof Iain Suthers explaining the project at Lake Tyers Beach
Prof Iain Suthers explaining the project to the crowd.  Bill Downey, Uncle Bill and Zac Tregonning from the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust listening on.

Anthony Hurst, executive director of Fisheries Victoria explaining their role in the project.
The crowd watching on.

The workers taking it all in :-)		 .

Fisheries keeping a watchful eye on our precious lake.
 Like to know more about the Prawns try these websites: Australian Museum , Queensland Fisheries , Sydney Fishmarket, Queensland Museum, just mention a few or my simplified Prawn Life Cycle page.

Amateur fishing is a great economic benefit to the Lakes area, as money spent by these people percolates from the bottom up and so many businesses will benefit. Good Fishing = Good Tourism. Read the Age Article.