Fish brim-full of mice getting hooked out of NSW river
For every cloud there’s a silver lining, and the state’s anglers may have found one for the ongoing mouse plague wreaking havoc on crops across New South Wales.
In the Macquarie River, the Murray cod are the biggest they’ve been for years, gorging on mice and getting fat.
Agronomist Mick Harris, from Narromine in the NSW Central West, said he had never seen Murray cod so fat this time of year.
“It’s not just the mouse plague,” he said.
“The (Macquarie) river is in really good condition after a few down years, and there’s lots of shrimp in it at the moment. But the mice are a factor.”
Mr Harris said a friend of his had caught a cod in the Macquarie in recent days only to find several mice inside its gullet.