Big weekend of fishing at Brewarrina

The Bre Big Fish team, back l-r: Matty Dwyer (brown hat), Allan Lynch, Jake Boney, Todd Pritchard, Badan Andrews, Matty Andrews, Kelsie Lovett. Front: Dave Hagarty, Luke Lynch, Baden Barker, Chris Frail, Clair Kesey, Caitlin Skinner, Julie Lukas, Trish Light, Romana Moylan-McGuirk, Katrina Ward, Nikki Mason. Photo Spencer Godwin

Bre Big Fish

Bre’s Big Fish has done its part for the environment once again, ridding the river of a swag of invasive carp while also providing a great community event.

Dave Hagarty, a member of the Brewarrina Fishing Club which hosted the annual event over the long weekend, said nominations were up on last year.

“We had 428 registrations overall which is about 30 more than last year, but we were slightly down on junior numbers,” Mr Hagarty said.

“There were a lot of familiar faces as some people use it as a reason to head back to Bre for the weekend. We get a lot of out of towners too, this year we had some people come all the way from Albury.

Besides vying for prizes for categories such as the longest carp, cod and yellow belly, keen anglers also dispose of some feral carp.

“The aim of the day is threefold,” Mr Hagarty said.

“We want to get people fishing and get them on the river and get them active. In these river towns, people love fishing and it’s a big sport to them. Not only is it a great pastime, but you can also get a good feed of fish out of it as well. We also aim to get rid of some carp.”

During this year’s Bre Big Fish around 1400 carp were pulled from the river and disposed of. While it’s a substantial number it was less than last year’s tally of 3000. […]

Read more and see lots of photos in the printed edition of The Western Herald.

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