LAKE Keepit won't be filled up with fishing lovers over the Easter long weekend with the Carp It Don't Keepit event cancelled for the third year in a row.
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After two years of cancellations due to the drought, the Lake Keepit Family Fishing Club has now been forced again to forego the event because of the coronavirus.
Club vice president Anne Michie is disappointed, but said it was "just too risky" given the ever-changing nature of restrictions.
"Volunteers put in a lot of time for an event like that and it's pretty hard to put in all that effort and then possibly have it pulled from under your feet at the last min with COVID," Ms Michie said.
"It's the major fundraiser for the club and it's a great weekend, I think last time [in 2018] we had about 400 people, and we pulled out about 3.5 tonne of carp.
'"Mother nature had something to say with the drought and no water and then the pandemic hit. We were looking forward to continuing it, we knew it would only get bigger and better."
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The event brings people from all over to reduce the number of carp in Lake Keepit, but with the dam now at 41 per cent and no event on, carp numbers will "explode again".
Ms Michie said the "rabbits of the waterways" have great breeding conditions at the moment, which poses a danger to native fish.
"They muck up the nesting sites for the catfish and cod because they're stirring up the mud, and they put over a layer of mud on the eggs," she explained.
"They're quite a significant pest in our waterways and they cause so many problems."
It's not all bad news, though, as the vice president says a smaller event may occur in October.
"It's a shame we won't be running it this year, but we'll see how the COVID situation pans out and we may possibly consider moving the date and have a smaller date in October," she said.
"That's an idea that's being thrown around but we haven't quite settled on what we'll do."