A day in the Fitzroy

[Douglas]

Well, the barra have been up to their spawning tricks for about a week now (so we think).

Conditions have been pretty stable wrt salinity at the mouth and the night flood tides have been increasing thus pushing the fertilised eggs up into the mangroves.

In the few weeks these eggs will be fry and looking for sanctuary to avoid getting eaten.

River flow in the next couple of weeks will provide that opportunity.

So what's the outlook for timely rains to produce that river flow?

Pretty good actually as BOM is predicting La Nina event (wet summer).

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/model-summary/#tabs=POAMA

With the river now closed to netting we have a lot more fish especially barra to take part in the spawning and those numbers will keep increasing.

Spawning is 1 element of the process but its recruitment (movement of barra fingerlings up into the sanctuary areas before other fish eat them) that's the real measure of a successful spawning.

Fingers crossed.