Big ones that didn't get away - Lake Rotoiti

Lake Rotoiti is living up to its reputation for producing some beefy trout.

Rotorua local John (‘Keeno’) Keen has fished for decades but the monster he hauled out of Lake Rotoiti in the middle of April still had him beaming. He and long-time fishing mate Phil Heron were harling from his boat Dr Hook when Keeno hooked the 6.46kg (14lb) wild rainbow on a Pat Swift fly. John says the 750mm whopper was his biggest trout ever. He graciously describes it as a team effort noting that his mate netted the fish superbly, with all the panache of “an Aussie top order batsman.” The pair caught one other fish, “a smelt by comparison,” at 2.5 to 3lb.

Meanwhile, Trent Thomson caught a solid hatchery-bred rainbow off Gisborne Point, Lake Rotoiti, around the same time. The trout measured 745mm and weighed 5.95kg.

Fish & Game Officer Matt Osborne says the “very solid fish are right up there” for rainbows caught in the Rotorua lakes district over the last decade.

The fact that John Keen’s fish was a wild trout shows that some natural spawning does take place, which is valuable for the fishery. However the value of the hatchery’s work lies in the fact that there’s not enough natural spawning – and Fish & Game’s big fish breeding programme means they can keep pace with the “demand” from anglers. “We release 28,500 rainbows into Lake Rotoiti every year.”

Rotoiti has produced some fine fish for a number of years as a lake which provides plenty of food for trout to grow large on, he adds.

Matt Osborne says the winter shoreline fishing is heating up around the Rotorua Lakes. The Te Wairoa fish trap at Lake Tarawera is getting an earlier run of fish than staff have seen during the last two years. “Autumn has kicked off very well with 65 fish through the trap already in two weeks of running it, and fish averaging just under 600mm and weighing 2.63kg.”

ENDS

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