Since 1997 Bass Sydney has taken an interest in fish passage on the Lane Cover River, developing relationships with NPWS and NSW Fisheries staff. With a fishway appropriate to native fish constructed in 1999 and subsequently improved in 2009, our focus has shifted to population monitoring and fishway maintenance.

Lane Cove Fishway Lane Cove Fishway

Our annual "in-house" Bass Catch events on this system suggest that recruitment of juvenile bass has been improved by this fishway with 2009 results in particular revealing more small fish than previously seen. During these events, and at other times as required, we remove debris from the fishway to help maintain it's effectiveness.

Lane Cove Fishway

In more recent times Bass Sydney has helped gain funding to help improve the riparian habitat of the Lane Cove River. Bass Sydney has dedicated time to remove weeds from the banks of the river and follow up the work with enrichment plantings to help increase the biodiversity of native plants in the riparian zone. This work will be conducted in mid-2012.

In 2011 Bass Sydney also helped gain funding for the continuing restoration of Tambourine bay wetlands which occurs in the estuarine reaches of the Lane Cove River. These continued works have made an enormous difference to this fragile ecosystem which provides perfect habitat and high tide feeding grounds for species such as Estuary Perch, Bream and Bass migrating through the system on their annual spawning run.