Sydney's Centennial Park
Sydney’s Centennial Park is one of the finest bits of green space in any of the World’s capitals that I had the pleasure of visiting in 2007 – and now, fly-fishermen in the city are being allowed to fish for the giant carp contained within the park’s eleven ornamental ponds, according to News.com.au.
The park, in line with many in municipal locations, had rules banning all fishing, but, owing to the nature of the carp – “They root around in the muddy bottom, stirring up sediment and making the water look like muck, and eat juvenile native fish and native aquatic plants,” said Park Trust director Ian Innes – and the relative expense of electrical fishing and other ordinary culling measures, they felt recreational fishing could help ‘kill two birds with one stone’ in this instance, so lifted the ban for members of the Sydney Fly Rodders Club.
Paul Cooper, of the club, has literally filled his boots, catching an Australian record carp weighing in at a whopping 11.4kg (that’s 25lb in old money, or thereabouts!).
This seems like an incredibly sensible approach to this issue: how refreshing!
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Dear readers,
On behalf of the Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust (Trust) we are indeed glad to see the sport of fly fishing re-emerge as one of the many actions we are taking to remove European Carp from the Centennial Parklands pond system.
Could I please make clear, however, that fishing in Centennial Parklands still remains against regulations. The Sydney Fly Rodders Association are specifically licensed to conduct this activity.
The Trust (a State Government authority as opposed to a local council) appreciates your interest in this matter, and any fly fishers should contact the Sydney Fly Rodders Association (www.sydneyflyrodders.com.au) if they would like to find out more about this activity – and fly fishing clinics that the Association runs regularly in Centennial Park.
Regards
Craig Easdown
Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust
Hi Craig,
Thanks for reiterating that – it is indeed a good move on the part of your organisation, and something which many would do well to follow – apologies if I was unclear about the need to join the Fly Rodders club in the original piece above.
The council thing was only a joke, by the way.
I am the co-ordinator of the “Carp Harvesting Program” and the fly casting tuition and training in Centennial Park.
Anyone interested in more information about these activities is welcome to contact me directly.
Interestingly, this was on TV last week!