THEY’VE been the scourge of western waterways for years and now the dreaded redfin have been identified in Lake Lyell.
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According to experts in the field the redfin have the potential to decimate recreational fishing and are virtually impossible to control.
Lake Lyell is the most popular ‘enclosed waters’ angling location in the Lithgow area.
Together with Wallerawang’s Lake Wallace and Thompsons Creek Dam it is an important year round component of the local tourism industry.
A former prominent figure with the Central Acclimatisation Society, Karl Schaerf, said that a redfin catch in Lake Lyell had been confirmed and that alarming reports had also come from other regular anglers.
Mr Schaerf said the likely results would be disastrous, not only for Lake Lyell but for the Nepean system downstream of the lake.
He said it was particularly distressing after the ‘stocking’ program over several years by NSW Fisheries and the Acclimatisation Society to establish fish stock in Lake Lyell with trout and Australian bass.
NSW Fisheries has been advised of the situation but Mr Schaerf said that if the redfin are already established an effective eradication will be next to impossible, as has been the experience elsewhere.
He described the redfin as ‘hateful things’.
Mr Schaerf said the redfin was an ‘introduced, invasive, disease carrying pest species’ that impacts on already threatened native species, particularly Macquarie perch.
“If they are in Lake Lyell then without a shadow of a doubt they will escape into Coxs River and then into Warragamba Dam and the Nepean system.
“This is disastrous news.”
Mr Schaerf said redfin had already seriously affected the attraction to anglers of the Oberon Dam and Bathurst’s Chifley Dam.
He referred to possible links with a well publicised incident in recent years when it was alleged a dam on a property near Rydal had been consciously stocked with redfin for private ‘sport fishing’.
