Taupō Fishery Focus. By trout anglers for trout anglers. Issue 34 – April 2024. Autumn offers some outstanding trout fishing opportunities in the Taupō Fishing District. Boat and kayak anglers can target prime-conditioned rainbow trout which have been gorging on smelt over summer. Autumn is also a great time of year for fly-anglers to target river mouths, where fish are starting to accumulate in preparation for the winter spawning runs. River anglers are certainly not missing out, as pulses of wet weather will prompt an injection of fresh early-run rainbows. If that wasn’t enough, larger browns spawn before their rainbow cousins, so are already entering rivers in increasing numbers. Earlier this month we launched our annual photo competition! There is still plenty of time to enter, so if you have a photograph or two that you think captures the spirit of the Taupō fishery, send them to us. Further details and information about how to enter, can be found below. If you are planning a fishing trip to the Taupō District don’t forget to respect the latest biosecurity advice and follow Check Clean Dry protocols. You will find an update on gold clam in this newsletter. Finally, please ensure you have purchased and are carrying a Taupō fishing licence before you start fishing. You can pick up a licence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from our online licence store:  www.doc.govt.nz/fishinglicence Tight lines. James Barnett Editor

Win a season licence in our photo competition. We’ve launched the annual Taupō fishery photo competition! Anglers are encouraged to enter photos and potentially land a licence for the new 2024/25 season. Winning a season licence is a great way to start the new Taupō fishing season, which kicks off 1 July 2024. Judges will look for photographs that reflect the various licence categories – while trophy shots can be really great, we also need good images to illustrate the variety of licences we offer:·        Adult season·       Child season·       Family season·       Senior season·       Adult week·       Adult 24 hour·       Child 24 hour You still have plenty of time to enter, so find a moment to flick through your photos and share what you love about fishing in the Taupō Fishing District. Entries close midnight, Sunday 19 May 2024. Competition details and information on how to enter can be found online:www.doc.govt.nz/TaupoFishingPhotoComp

Lake Taupō summer survey results.Following on from the snapshot published in Issue 33, our summer survey on Lake Taupō is now complete and here are some key points.Angler surveys on Lake Taupō commenced in November 2023 and continued through until Easter weekend with 322 angler interviews completed and 288 individual rainbow trout measured and weighed by staff. Overall, the catch rate for anglers fishing Lake Taupō this summer was 0.84 fish per hour (1 legal sized trout every 71 minutes) and is the third highest on record since 1992 (Fig.1). Jigging was the preferred method on the lake this summer and accounted for 48.3% of all angler interviews and was followed by deep trolling on 24.6% and shallow trolling on 15.3%. Down riggers and wirelines accounted for 5.9% and 2.8%, respectively (Fig.2). Jigging has remained the most popular method and during recent years has accounted for approximately half of all fish reported in angler interviews. The general trend for deep trolling with lead lines has decreased from about 46% to 25% during the same period. Shallow trolling has seen a slight increase in popularity since summer 2018/19 where it has increased from a low of 4% to a high of 15.3% this year. According to the survey data anglers kept a total of 330 trout (53.7% of total recorded catch), releasing 242 trout (39.3%) that were legal sized and returning a further 43 trout (7%) that were under the legal size limit. Overall, anglers kept 57.7% of their catch that was legal sized. Encouragingly, the percentage of catch and release amongst anglers has dropped this summer to 32.7% with anglers choosing to keep more trout this summer for the table. The 288 rainbows (Fig.3) measured and weighed by staff averaged 473mm and 1.21kg (2.7lbs) with an average condition factor of 41.8. The majority of these fish (63%) were classed as maidens and these young fish averaged 458mm and 1.21kg with a condition factor of 45.5. Those trout classed as previous spawners averaged 497mm & 1.2kg with an average condition factor score of 35.5. The average size and weight this summer is consistent with recent years excluding the exceptional summer of 2021/22. Length distributions of rainbows kept this summer are shown in Figure 5.  The heaviest rainbow weighed by staff this summer was a stunning hen weighing 2.15kg (4.7lbs), measuring 505mm in length with a condition factor of 60! This fish was caught jigging at the southern end of the lake during early November. As part of the survey, anglers were asked to rate the size and quality of the trout that they are catching, their angling success and their angling enjoyment out of ten. This summer, anglers rated the trout that they were catching at 6.5, their success at 6.7 and their enjoyment at 9.4 (Fig.4). This summer saw a slight improvement in the size and quality of the trout and the success of anglers in comparison to last summer with angling enjoyment remaining the same. Anglers were also asked whether anything detracted from their angling enjoyment. Of those anglers asked, 63.5% said that nothing detracted from their angling enjoyment. Jet skis formed the largest detraction (13.9%), followed by bad manners and poor etiquette by other boat users (8.4%), weather (2.9%) and fish size and quality (2.2%). Overall, the summer of 2023/24 was good with some impressive catch rates. Despite the presence of numerous recovering trout amongst the early summer catch, anglers did their part and harvested good numbers of trout this summer. Average sizes and weights are consistent with more recent years but obviously down on those from the exceptional summer of 2021/22. Jigging remained the preferred method by almost 50% of anglers interviewed. Average satisfaction scores were up slightly for trout size and catch rates compared to the previous summer with angling enjoyment remaining high. Jet skis were the main detraction cited by anglers this summer.

Gold clam monitoring scales up. The recent well publicised discovery of a gold clam incursion at the Taupō Aqua Park has reinforced the need for vigilance in the Taupō Fishing District. In response, the Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board (TMTB) has scaled up monitoring work and currently has collected eDNA samples at 47 separate test sites in the district.The DOC Fishery Management Team is actively supporting TMTB. Fishery Rangers assist members of the TMTB freshwater monitoring team to reach remote areas in the Western Bays to conduct eDNA tests. These selected areas can only be accessed by boat. This makes them very popular with recreational boaties, which brings increased risk of a gold clam incursion. The Trust Board says it is their responsibility to know what is happening in their lake, and the monitoring work is critical to this understanding. The monitoring sites are carefully selected with a particular focus on high traffic areas. Looking ahead robust monitoring data will provide the critical information needed to make good management decisions in the Taupō District. The information is also shared with other agencies involved with the gold clam response, including Biosecurity NZ and unitary authorities. Prevention is better than cure, so visitors are urged to adhere to Biosecurity NZ advice. Respect all Controlled Area Notices and remember to follow Check Clean Dry protocols when moving between waterways. Details can be found on the Biosecurity NZ website>

Erosion protection on Tauranga-Taupō River complete. Erosion maintenance work on the Tauranga-Taupō River was recently completed with minimal interference to anglers. The work focussed on two bends on the lower river located a short distance above the SH1 bridge, where significant erosion was occurring. The work involved carefully placing piles of large rocks on the outside of the bends to form a series of protective groynes. Waikato Regional Council advise the riverbank and rock groynes will remain a dynamic system, but bulk movement in the vicinity of the groynes is expected to halt at its current position. Some localised erosion and deposition is expected, particularly following storm events. A stable riverbank profile can be expected to develop over time.