More than 45,000 Trout Released into North Island Lakes
Thursday 16 June 2011, 9:54AM
By Eastern Fish & Game
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North Island lake trout stocks have received a huge boost – with Fish & Game releases topping the 45,000 mark, and more set down for spring.
Fish & Game’s hatchery at Ngongotaha has completed the first phase of “liberations” in Rotorua, Hawkes Bay, Waikato, Auckland and Northland regions – which see around 100,000 fish released annually.
Fish & Game Officer Mark Sherburn says that renown trout lakes like Rotorua’s need re-stocking for a couple of reasons – firstly, a lack of spawning streams running into most of the lakes. Secondly, there are a lot of anglers harvesting trout for the table, as they’re encouraged to do.
He says the Eastern Region hatchery plays the role of “a big efficient spawning stream for the Rotorua lakes.”
“We take brood fish from the Rotorua lakes and breed them (young fish) up – look after them with kid gloves and then put them back in the lakes. So we are a super-efficient spawning stream.”
And we enhance the fishery by trying to make the fish better - selecting the big fish, the late-maturing ones for our breeding programmes, he says.
“Without the hatchery operations and liberations the Rotorua lakes fishery would be a shadow of what it is now.”
So far, an estimated 30,000 fish have been released into five of Rotorua’s seven lakes, with only Okareka and Rerewhakaitu remaining. Another 15,000 hatchery fish have gone to other regions including Hawkes Bay, Waikato, Auckland and Northland.
There are always wild fish present but not breeding at a rate fast enough to satisfy all the anglers fishing for trout. Fish & Game surveys show that anglers catch one fish for every three or four hours of fishing.
The young fish grown in the hatchery’s ponds are anaesthetised before they are tagged or have their fins clipped. They are then transported in a specially equipped tanker to be set free.
More fish are clipped given the $1-a-fish cost of tagging. Staff working out in the field weighing and measuring angler catches, can tell from the tags or clips the time of year a fish was released, and in what year.
As the fish later return to the spot where they were released to spawn, Fish & Game officers release the fish at various sites to provide fishing right around a lake.
While the first phase of liberations is nearing completion, another will begin in September.