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What You Doin' With Those Little Fish, Mister? Trout Release
Message to anglers – wait a year or more for these young trout to grow fat – then give chase.
Fish & Game officers have carried out their first release for the year (Tues Feb 14), dropping 1,500 young fish into two of Rotorua region’s best loved angling lakes.
The first 1000 seven month-old fish were released into Lake Tarawera, before a curious crowd of mainly children and one or two tourists. Another 500 were then freed into Lake Rotoiti at Ruato Bay.
Fish & Game Officer Lloyd Gledhill says the summer releases started some years ago amid some skepticism, as releases were historically carried out in spring and autumn.
The summer programme has proved successful, he says, in two ways: “fish survive grow big and get caught by anglers – and that’s our ultimate goal. Or they survive and grow big and swim up rivers and into the hatchery’s fish traps - to be used as breeding stock.”
He says they win either way, but ideally they want most to be caught by anglers. In the meantime, anglers are reaping the rewards from earlier re-stocking - catching their share of fully grown fish; two trophy size trout were caught in Lake Tarawera last week.
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