# Maribyrnong River



## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2005)

There has been a little bit of talk around the traps here about how well the Maribyrnong river has been going as a fishing spot this summer.

For those in other states that don't really know much about the river it's starts life on the slopes of the Macedon ranges nth west of Melbourne and flows to the yarra river about 5 kms from the bay. It goes past the Gov explosives factory in Maribyrnong past the Flemington racecourse and through Footscrazy(sic) and past the Coode Island storage facility where one of the biggest , if not the biggest fire in Melbourne's history .

Then just over on the other side of the river is the old Pivot fertiliser plant, reported to be the most contaminated industrial sites in Melbourne if not Aus and is now derelict. Then about 500 meters along we have the Yarra river just past CSR plaster(next door to Pivot)

The Launch spot, near Flemington Racecourse









First off we go past this bridge, it was the old cattle bridge for the stockyards, now a foot bridge









Next is the Kensington Rail bridge









The Dynon rd bridge ( background ) and Footscray Rd bridge









The thing i noticed on all the bridge supports were good coatings of barnacles, mussels etc and in the shallower parts near the banks were mullet hanging about.

Coode island on the left and Pivot on the right near the rounded tree









The CSR cooling water outlet under the old pier.









And oooohh the big boys are about on the Yarra









Heading back with the boat moorings on the left.









Nearly home , the Smithfield/ Ballarat rd double bridge, my car on the right.








While i fished a bit with lures(plastics) and saw quite a few follows i didn't get any hits at all. There were plenty of jellyfish in the water too. What i was happier about is that the water didn't stink. There were lots of smaller bait fish about too.

Now the next thing was getting the yak out as most of the banks are angled rock walls. I found a decent little spot to launch and it was fairly easy to get the yak there but now was the fun bit about to start.
After unloading the yak i looked at the rocks and thought ah ha. So i did this .
Laid the carpet i use to rest the yak on when loading onto the rocks down to the water level and pulled the yak up on it . The yak slid like a ripper , just need about an extra meter on the carpet.








It was easy as pie.

When i was out and ready to go home i saw heaps of mullet hanging about , would have been a good live bait gathering point.
Hope you can see the shadowy figures









All in all it was a good little exploration of the lower reaches of the Maribyrnong. 
There are many places to either fish with lures or bait and from some of the sounder readings i saw there are most likely some decent sized fish swimming about down there. There are heaps of spots you can tie up and fish live bait or even troll it slowly along the bottom.
There are bait schools swimming about , mullet everywhere and bream following everything , even though they didn't want to play the game.


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## Daveyak (Oct 6, 2005)

PeterJ said:


> For those in northern states that don't really know much about the river it's starts life on the slopes of the Macedon ranges nth west of Melbourne and flows to the yarra river about 5 kms from the bay.


Peter, thanks for conceding that those of us in the western states already know all we need to know about Melbourne :wink: :lol:

Thanks anyway for the informative tour.


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## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2005)

fixed


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## Grogfather (Jan 8, 2007)

Peter, A really informative report mate. They say if the Maribyrnong river floods again, it will flood big due to the residential developement upstream???? 
Good work. (Or play)
Gaz.


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## Dodge (Oct 12, 2005)

Enjoyed the read Peter of an area I know nothing about, thanks


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

mate, that is some feral looking water.... :shock:

industry, pollution, explosives :shock: , fertiliser..

eeeeerrk. yuk. (although the pictures do make it look good!)

it's great that you got out for a paddle, but I'm not surprised you didn't catch anything, if I was a fish I wouldn't want to live in there either! :roll: 8)

have they slapped a 'warning' on eating fish caught in that area as yet?? (as with the dioxin warnings in parts of sydneys waterways)


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## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2005)

Yeah they have but there is a pass the buck mentallity going on about it, the area near the old Pivot site was a very bad one , here is a link to the Age story on it.

PIVOT

yeah i certainly would not eat any bream from anywhere near that river  , although hundreds do. One can only wonder about the smaller bream upstream and what effect it has had on them. There are crap loads of fish around there, nearly all glow :roll:


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## Tim (Nov 11, 2005)




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## Fishing Man (Oct 4, 2006)

interesting read mate,

the yarra is certainly a pretty river in parts, especially up in the freshwater parts, also the parks in the middle of melbourne make a nice backdrop.


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## Garfish (Jun 2, 2006)

A fantastic pictorial trip Peter - Thanks mate.

Although I'm yet to get the yak out on the river, it's just a matter of time.

I'd be keen to explore a little bit further up - some good fishing around the Avondale Heights area - and possibly some safer launches.


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## kingfisher111 (Jun 13, 2006)

The poor old Maribyrnong is a rather sad looking river in its lower reaches yet still shows so much promise of what it could be with some TLC. Years ago I used to white water?? kayak a section that runs in a deep gorge around Melbourne airport. The river there is so spectacular, running through granite boulders the size of cars. Long technical rapids, waterfalls with drops up to 10ft. Then stick your head out of the gorge for a look and see great big jets taxiing past in the distance. The only time we could paddle it was in flood so unfortunately there`d be plastic bags hanging in the trees and litter everywhere. Really made you wish you could seal your nostrils off like seals, oh and never open your mouth! Steve.


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## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2005)

Occy, yes mate like the blue now, at first i though cripes what a dog but now i likes it.

Garfish, the whole river is a bit of a pain . The rock walls go for miles . They end up the anglers tavern but then the river become a bit inaccessible as it's down some steep walls and ends up at the rock ford at the end of canning st near milleara rd. 
It then turns totally fresh and goes up through the brimbank park and keilor and under the western hwy then just about ends in little pools and tiny runs for a while .There are two fords between canning and the hwy. But about 6 kms of river between canning and the first ford upstream


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## PoddyMullet (Aug 29, 2005)

Nice read PeterJ, amazing what fish will survive in really. I fished it once from the bank with some kid's and thought it was a great day out kinda river for easy access, a game of cricket and some lunch. From memory we hooked some small gobi type fish but saw a coupla little bream come out. I'd vote for the blue aswell


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## Clarkos (Oct 11, 2006)

Any idea what Corio bay is like now that Pivot (amoungst others) are there?

Homebush polution would be of similar levels. I used work for an old subsiduary of ICI, who used be based in Homebush. Used the river to get product in. In the old days, some of the stuff that went in was unbelievable. And they were only small players.


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## Y-Knot (Sep 26, 2006)

great report Peter ... im thinking about fishing the river also, chasing some (?) supposed nice bream but havent yet looked into possible locations. Werribee river also might have the goods...
in time i suppose.

Garfish, let us know if your planning a trip up the river, probably join you if your up for company...


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## Garfish (Jun 2, 2006)

Sounds good Y-Knot. I took a trip up the Werribee River in an inflatable boat with an electric motor last year... lovely spot to fish - it would be perfectly suited to the kayaks. In my limited experience, the average IQ of the resident bream in the werribee seem much higher than the average. Very timid.


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## Y-Knot (Sep 26, 2006)

now that sounds like a challenge Garfish ... timid bream..Hmmmm.


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## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2005)

I,m thinking of the Werribee on Sat or Sun some time , not sure on work roster though. Or maybe ill paddle up the maribyrnong this time.


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## Y-Knot (Sep 26, 2006)

hows your roster looking PeterJ.... i can do a saturday arvo/evening session if your still thinking of hitting a river somewhere 8)


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## PeterJ (Aug 29, 2005)

Just a bit more on the pollution in the Marib.
A mate from work fished there on the same day i paddled past the footscray rd bridge, cut his foot on a rock . 4 weeks later it was still infected.


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## Garfish (Jun 2, 2006)

Just on the pollution theme Peter - would you be eating fish from Port Melbourne (Princess Pier)... ??


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## Gibbo (Feb 26, 2007)

Thanks for taking us on your journey. Even though I live in Canberra now I regularly fished the Yarra and Maribyrnong as a kid. I remember some footage I saw at the Boat Show in Melb. in the early 80s of a young Rex Hunt and an old guy called Jack Wells catching bream after bream - literally filling their tinny - in a small, but nice looking estuary that I presumed was East Gippsland. It was actually somewhere upstream in the Maribyrnong one winter. I assume they had come upon a congregation of spawing fish.

And I just came across this article on pollution in this system:

A report on contaminant levels in fish from the Yarra/Maribyrnong estuary, and whether they are safe to eat, has been released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)...

The contaminants of greatest concern are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins Ã¢â‚¬â€œ both known to pose health risks at significantly higher concentrations than reported during the current study. To further minimise the health risks to recreational fishers, DHS has extended an earlier advisory warning (limiting eel consumption to one serve per month) to also limit consumption of any fish caught from these rivers to four serves per month (children up to age 15 and pregnant women are advised to eat one serve of fish per month, and avoid eating eels).

Further information can be obtained from the EPA website http://www.epa.vic.gov.au.


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