Auckland / Waikato News > April 2008

Regional Update

Lake Pupuke
Trout Unlimited will again be running their popular fishing competition in Lake Pupuke on Sunday 4th  May.  The competition runs from 6 a.m. to 3.30 p.m, with weigh-in at the Sylvan Park Reserve.  As in previous years there is no entry fee but lots of prizes!  Fish and Game has released about 3000, 2-year-old trout into Pupuke over the last year so there should be plenty of fish in the lake. 

We’ve received several reports in recent months of small rainbows being caught in Pupuke with speculation that they are the results of natural reproduction in the lake. However they are much more likely to be yearling fish that “sneaked” into the fish releases that we carried out last year. Fish from the yearling ponds at the Ngongotaha hatchery occasionally “escape” downstream into the rearing ponds for the two-year-olds.  We don’t count these yearlings when doing the releases but several hundred would have been released over the last year. 

World fly fishing championship
Although based in Rotorua, three of the five competition venues were in the Auckland/Waikato Region.  Anglers from 18 countries took part.  Over the three day competition, 1208 trout were caught and released in the Waimakariri Stream, 1276 in the Waihou River, and 1304 in the Whanganui River.  In each river about 10 km of water was fished, so that’s about 130 fish per kilometre caught over the three days.  I will be able to tell you more about the fish caught in the competition in the next Reel Life once we have received the raw data back from the organisers.

 The competition was won by the team from the Czech Republic with New Zealand coming second.  Full results are given on the competition website: www.2008worldflyfishingchamps.com

Rivers rapidly clearing
There was a good rain last week with most rivers getting a moderate fresh that can only be beneficial to the trout population.  However, the upper Whanganui and Whakapapa  Rivers both had large floods which receded rapidly.  The upper Whakapapa River rising from 5 m³/s to 140 m³/s in under an hour at the time of the horrendous tragedy on the nearby Mangatepopo Stream.  Remember if you intend to fish these headwater rivers you need to take precautions including reading the most recent mountain forecast supplied by the Met Service (www.metservice.co.nz/default/index.php?alias=mttongariro).

At the time of writing (mid-April) all the region’s rivers are rapidly clearing and should be very fishable within a day or two.  Most rivers are holding high trout numbers so fishing over the next month should be very good.

Ben Wilson
Fisheries Manager

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