A very good fishery, 20 April 2009
I've read your article on the Goolwa lakes with interest. My family has lived on Currency creek and held land on the Murray / Darling since 1838, with accurate records kept for much of this time. My father remembers Currency Creek salt / bracking as a boy in the 30's... He used to catch mullet, school mullaway, etc in the viaduct pool above the old Currency Creek bridge. The Murray / Darling has dried completely during my family's time line of holding lands on this river system. In the late 1800's driving cattle, etc. along the dry Murray / Darling, the lakes were always salt / brackish... Surely the real environmental issue was the creation of the fresh water that has been in the lakes since my father's youth? Indeed, the creation of the freshwater lakes did within a few short years of their being closed to the sea knock the very good fishery that there once existed. This, like many issues in Australia today has been clouded by very "mixed" media reporting and emotion. Has everyone forgotten that SA is the driest state on the driest continent?
Kind regards,
Kent Scott