Introducing yellowfish to stillwaters

[yella]

On a couple of recent trips I have seen yellowfish living happily in coldish water and in pools and weirs in rivers that are very similar to small dams. This got me thinking about introducing them into stillwaters and wondering what are the general problems with introducing yellowfish in stillwaters.

Im asking this because we have several dams on our family farm at Dullstroom and the trout has not been restocked in a while so there are few left. I actually like fishing for yellowfish more than for trout and would like to convert our dams to yellowfish if its possible.

The three biggest issues that I can see is:

1. Is the water too cold up there? (but then again I see people catching yellowfish in Lesotho)
2. Is there any hatcheries where you can buy yellowfish?
3. What is the right species - I probably need to check where the streams on our farm ends up. My ignorant assumption is that if they go westward it should probably be smallmouths and if they end up in east running rivers it should be large scale.

Thanks

Tiaan

[firephish]

I think you require a permit to stock them, such a permit is unlikely to be granted if the dams are in a drainage system that smallmouth (i presume you are wanting to stock smallmouth?) do not occur naturally in - which is unfortunately the case for the Dullstroom area.

[yella]

I would want to stock the right one for the drainage area - if it is large scales, then that is what I would prefer.

[icstuff]

I would do thorough homework first! Do/Did the fish naturally occur in the river system? because it is not just about survival of the fish it is also about the legality of introducing a foreign species.
If it is a dam then there should not be a problem but once again what happens during a flood, will the fish get into the river?

[yella]

The biggest fear would be to introduce a wrong species or strain - and in floods they might get washed out and then you dont want hybridization. Do you need a permit to relocate in the same stream/river? It might be a better option to follow the streams until they are a bit larger and ask some of the farmers to fish there.

[yella]

P.S. if I follow the streams on google maps, our streams join the witpoortriver, which runs into the laersdriftspruit, that joins the steelpoortriver, and that finally joins the olifants. Does anybody maybe know if those rivers contain any yellowfish higher up? There must be in the steelpoort, but I wonder how high up they are found.

[BuzzLiteBeer]

P.S. if I follow the streams on google maps, our streams join the witpoortriver, which runs into the laersdriftspruit, that joins the steelpoortriver, and that finally joins the olifants. Does anybody maybe know if those rivers contain any yellowfish higher up? There must be in the steelpoort, but I wonder how high up they are found.

I would start looking here. Smallscale yellowfish??
http://www.wrc.org.za/Knowledge%20Hu...nservation.pdf

[Pipe]

Smallscale Yellowfish and Largescale Yellowfish should occur in that area, and they will survive fine in dams if they have good quality water. At this venue there are some big Largescale Yellowfish in the dams: http://doornkopresort.co.za/

[yella]

Thanks that helps a lot. So I see both smallscales and largescales are in the steelpoort river, but lagescalses not found at very high altitudes. So if they are in the witpoortriver I guess it must be smallscales.

[yella]

I see the Lydenburg hatchery used to breed smallscales, does anybody know if they still do and how to get into contact with them? Maybe they know about permit requirements etc. too.