Pemberton trout pond clean-up

A project hoping to restore a piece of Pemberton’s fishing history while improving tourism reached an important milestone last week. Members of the Southern Forests Freshwater Angling Club have been working hard to restore the WA heritage-listed MacCallum Smith Memorial Trout Ponds, spending one Sunday a month since April cleaning up the site. The MacCallum Smith Trout Ponds were developed about 1940 by the Trout and Game Acclimatisation Society and the public works department to support the introduction of the fish into the area. The ponds have long since been left unused, had paths built over them and become severely overgrown with vegetation. Last week the SFFAC finally finished clearing most of the first race of the ponds, as well as the return channel to the main stream. President Simon Holland said now group members had cleaned out a good chunk of the debris, they could better assess the future of the site. “We’re able to see now what the sort of damage is and what we can expect to repair,” he said. “Now it’s thrown open. “Now we need people to come and help us — we’d like to get an excavator in at some point to actually (fully) clean out that first race. “It is only a shale bottom so it’s just a matter of taking out (the debris) that’s built up over the years — it’s just mud and broken-down leaves and things like that. “There’s still the heritage aspect that we have to deal with and how far we can go to restore it to its original state.” Mr Holland said the club was looking to source funding for signs and possible future tourism opportunities. “This is all about tourism — we want to promote the freshwater fishing in Pemberton,” he said. “Pemberton is the heart of trout in WA but it hasn’t been promoted as much over the years — it’s kind of been forgotten. “We need some way of assessing how much tourism is actually coming into Pemberton because the Pemberton people, I don’t think they realise how many dollars the travelling freshwater anglers actually bring to town. “I can see it because people are talking to me from Perth all the time.” Mr Holland said the club hoped to have the site ready as a tourist attraction for next year’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the trout hatchery in Pemberton.