Unfortunately, the only thing dropping in our local rivers at the moment is the oxygen levels.
Shrimp, yabbies and Murray crays are still walking up the bank. As long as our weather stays cool, this can work as they get a bit of air and then duck under water again.
There are some giant crays sitting on the banks around town. I have heard of a lot of small crays dying, as well as some of the big ones.
Unfortunately, our fish cannot come up out of the water to get a breath of air.
There was a giant cod that floated past Moulamein today. It was estimated at 1.3 meters or bigger. I only got a late glimpse of it as I was in the process of getting bogged while delivering sand bags around town. But that’s another story. It looked big enough to be a dead sheep. Cod of every size seem to be dying and more and more of them. When the weather heats up, look out. It will not be pretty for our fish population.
I did a few oxygen tests last Saturday morning. I found out that this is not the best time to do it, as it gives the lowest readings, which is when the fish die.
I told my professor mates that it is more fun doing the tests with a stubby in the evening than a coffee in the morning. Bugger. Morning it is.
These readings were taken last Saturday between 8am and 9am. So, they should be close to accurate.
The Murrain Yarrein was at 1.21 per cent, Yarrein 0.73 per cent, Edward flood bridge .81 per cent, Edward 0.76 per cent, Billabong 0.72 per cent, and Town Lake 10.2 per cent.
Where would you want to be if you were a cod dying of lack of oxygen in our rivers. You would want to be in our town lake. There have been plenty of fish put up into our town lake but we had a problem on the weekend.
Our local kids were busy netting fish that were dying in our rivers and taking them to our town lake to save them. Great job kids, keep up the good work.
Unfortunately, my mates from the Fisheries and Wildlife or whatever they call themselves turned up in their uniforms for a change and told our kids to stop saving the dying fish as it was illegal to relocate fish out of the river.
What a load of crock. The fish are dying and our community-minded kids are ordered to stop saving saving fish.
I cannot tell you what to do, kids. But the rivers are at 0.7 per cent and the fish are dying. The lake is at 10.2 per cent and the fish are thriving.
Please work it out for yourselves. To those fisheries fellers in uniform – just chill out and bend the rules to save fish instead of fund raising. You would save more fish by relocating a few yourselves rather than book a kid for one too many hooks on his line.
Fill those bags
All of those strangers you see running around our little town in a yellow uniform are volunteers with our Rural Fire Service (RFS) from all around our state, and from interstate. If you talk to any of them., please do not call them the SES. They are all from the RFS. They come from all around the state to give up their time to help our town.
The SES do a great job as well. But there is that much going on. Volunteers are hard to find so our RFS has stepped up from fighting fires to fighting floods. Thank you for helping us out.
We need more sand bags filled as our Edward is expected to keep rising.
Instead of going to the gym, come around to the fire shed in town, anytime. It does not have to be a working bee. Just get in touch with our local RFS which is open most of the day at the moment and they will point you to the sand pit and give you as many bags as you would like to fill. Everyone welcome.
Divi 4 Still On Top
Another good win for Divi 4 against Lake Boga cements their spot-on top of the bowls ladder. They have put up the no vacancy sign for most Divi 1 players that miss out on a game. No players needed they recon. They have got it covered. Divi 1 did have a win on Saturday as well. We all get a week off this week. Please get your A Grade singles games done or get cut.
Yet more rain
What can I say. It rained again, and there is more forecast this weekend. I give up. Send it down, Huey. Give me something to talk about in the old people’s home. “Remember 2022”. We will be saying to our carers. They will all be too young to remember it and we will have the one in 500 flood to remember, 1956 was a pup, we will be saying.
River Levels
Your guess is as good as mine. Every time our rivers should start to drop, we get more rain. At the time of writing, our Edward has hit six metres and 27,500 megs a day. There is now over 178,000 megs below Yarrawonga. This is not good for our district. Good luck to all out there. Please keep that panic button handy.
