More fishy correspondence:
Had a cracking weekend down at the Mackenzie Country canals over the weekend, lots of great eating size salmon and both browns and rainbows over 20lb.



Continuing correspondence: Letter from Herb spells it out so that even I can understand it: Wonder why DOC cannot understand it?
Hi Ross
The irony is that this is also a “Wild Fishery” of genetically identical rainbows to Taupo. The most urgent thing doc must do at Taupo is to keep the numbers of trout in balance with the available food in the lake from one year to the next. It is not good enough to do hand wringing and brattle on about “Wild Fishery” and then do nothing. A couple of months ago I was talking to the Eastern F&G scientist and mentioned why DOC should investigate supplementary food sources that don’t compete with smelt and he too wondered why DOC had not done that already.
http://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/possibly-the-longest-trout-ever-landed_topic118121.html (repeated below)
The irony is that this is also a “Wild Fishery” of genetically identical rainbows to Taupo. Size is directly related to food and there is not enough food in Lake Taupo for trout to grow to grow to anywhere near their potential. The most urgent management intervention DOC must do at Taupo is to keep the numbers of trout in balance with the available food in the lake from one year to the next”. This is particularly important in this food poor lake that frequently suffers from an imbalance between trout and smelt and this is practically the only management intervention available to DOC.
Cheers
Herb
Thanks Herb. For many years TRM have promoted a massive whitebait farm on the delta to fix the problem in the food chain – to supplement the trout primary food source. Surplus white bait could be sold to cover the costs. Government have spent $80 Million trying to keep the lake 100% pure to fit their promotional image and put nothing back to replace the starving smelt to support a $30Million p.a. trout fishing industry…
Just imagine the effects on Turangi tourism if they put their efforts into growing trophy trout like that above… It isn’t that hard – they only need feeding.