What Bait to use while fishing on the Cooper's

Year that made me Laugh good one.

Cheers Steve.

All he'll catch with that is food poisoning :-))

Louie, I like the way you sort your bait the same way we do. It's nice to have yabbie entree with yellow belly for main. Yum yum.

Bringing local yabbies (depending on where you're coming from) might not be the best of ideas.

You could be unknowingly translocating species or subspecies not found in one river system into another, or transporting diseases.

Common yabbies from southern SA and Cooper Creek are probably both Cherax Destructor, but if you're coming from another part of Australia, you could be fishing with live bait of a species not found in Cooper Creek. Using gold fish as live bait is how some Victorian rivers got infested with the buggers.

Simply possessing Marron (WA) and Red Claw (Qld) crayfish is an offence in Victoria, because of the threat they pose to local yabbies, even though both species are Australian natives. Neither species can be brought into NSW either without a permit. Translocation is a massive threat to local biodiversity even if it's just "yabbies".

Safest option is use local bait if you're going to use live bait. Would suck to read in 12 months time that red claws had found their way into Cooper Creek and buggered up the local population because someone picked some up in Qld and then did a spot of fishing in SA.

Good advice Darian - but Scubaroo you are quite correct about yabbies from elsewhere and Marron and Red Claw The Fishing Inspectors do not take kindly to finding these yummy little things
(and yes you will find Fishing Inspectors). Generally we find in the rivers out there small local yabbies (if you can find them) - small, and put them whole on the large hook. Frozen yabbies do not hold together as well as fresh either. There's usually plentyof shrimp around. Plenty of people catch on meat as well. Depends how the fish are feeling on the day.
August - that will depend on how much water is left by then as well (but the weather should be pleasant - not too hot). Happy fishing (what a great pastime).

Yes, August was not good for us at Cullyamurra when we were there.

There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of small Turtles resident in Cullyamurra and after catching one undersized Callop and three turtles, I gave up and put the fishing rod away.

Found out at the Store that March/April/May are possibly the best times for Callop and a popular method is to drift along the waterhole (in a tinnie of course) and jig for them.

Caught some whopper yabbies in the waterhole too, but the location is my "secret".
I may have a loose tongue though, if plied with enough alcohol:-))

Sand Man -NEVER divulge your secret locations - having said that,
Willem and Uncle camped on our last year's secret special yabbie location when they were last in Birdsville! The yabbies were safe tho because Willem had White Lightning and a new bottle of Muscat, a gift from a friend and admirer!!!

oooh....rums kicked in,bde time

LAURa

yum yum Rum give me more,bed time allready bugga.cheer's GREENDOG

Must be an echo in here