Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

At the start of the year, a mate of mine put in 200 silver fingerlings into his dam. With the warm weather hitting us, they are feeding on the surface (gave him some feed to throw in) He can't quite see them completely, but they are definitely hitting the feed. Well it is either the silvers or some other fish (and lots of them) hitting the feed.

Anyway, I am heading there this weekend and we plan on trying to catch 30-40 silvers to put into my system. MKy plan is to use some bird netting, large sinkers tied to the edges and some rope weaved in and out along the edge to close the net when I pull on it (if you know what I mean). Do people think this will work, ie throw in feed, then throw in net, net sink (hopefully quickly), pull rope to drag net in and close the net?

If not any ideas how to catch them?

Quachy

highly unlikely it will work. Best idea is a trap with a mesh cage of food in it. We used plastic mesh around 5mm diameter diamond mesh, made into a rectangular cube, with entry points at each end like a yabbie net. They swim in but seem to struggle to find their way out. A flap on the top held by wiore makes it easy to tip them out. Leave it in overninght /24 hours.

any pictures monya?

possible if I can get my shit together and charge up the camera and free up some space on my memory card. Must do that, should take some current system pics.

battery on charge, memory card downloading now . will take a pic tomorrow for you.

awesome thanks!

That would be good while you are doing photos we are still waiting for photos of your mates cooling tower thingy

here are some pics. One end has the entry point, the other is fixed with a flap that folds over the top and creates an opeing to tip put the fish. A bit basic, but it works really well.

awesome thanks for that! it looks like gutter guard stuff?

That looks like a scale up of a standard yabbie trap.

how big is the dam? trawling it with a couple of ppl walking throught he water with a big net until you join it in a circle will work, I've seen it done, mostly in the ocean, but it should work in the dam.

about 20m diam but the drop along most of the edges is almost 4ft. I might give both options a go, the trap and my net idea. my family trade was fishing over in vietnam and throwing the net won't be a problem, it's more the size of the holes in the netting. if i had the time then i could make the net, but alas, my time machine is broken. Damn flux capacitor was overloaded with 1.31gigawatts instead of 1.21.

Quachy

Damn, that seems to happen quite often...
How big are the silvers you want to catch?

they range in size from 5" through to 10" I think. I do know that there are some reddies in there as well. It will be interesting to see what has survived and how big from the 2" they started at when they were put in in feb this year.

they will be harder to catch then, as they school less, and are much more flighty. Good luck. 5" silvers will fit through 15mm mesh if you give them a chance.

hopefully will pull the net in fast enough to at least catch a few!