ANGLING CONFERENCE

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 151, 17 December 1954, Page 1

ANGLING CONFERENCE

ANGLIYG CONFERENCE

REPORT ON WINTER SEASON

The annual conference between Officers of the Wild Life Division of the Department of Internal Affairs, and members of the fishing and shooting organisations of the Taupo Fishery District, v/as held in Rickit's Hall, Taupo, on Saturday, December 11. The conference was presided over by Mr G. L. O'Halloran, Assistant Secretary for Internal AfTairs. Following the Chairman's welcome to those present, Mr D. F. Hobfos, Senior Fisheries Ofhcer, presented an interim report on the winter season which ended on October 31st. By bridging completely the gap between two open seasons, this experimental season had gone greatly beyond anything suggested by any angling club, and as an experiment had been justified, in that all information which could reasonably be required had I been obtained. Low rivers and moderate weather ccnditions had meant that the experiment was conducted under circumstances unusually favourable both to angling and to natural spawning. Continuing observations would be necessary, said Mr Kobbs, to show whether, in fact, a redistribution of angling pressure had been achieved, or whether the winter yield simply represented an increased abstraction of fish, possibly at the expense of the summer fishing. Further, any biological consequences would not be immediately evident. h

Angling Effort On the basis of 1950-51 date the yield in a normal open season oi seven months was in the vicinity of 200,000 trout, while the gross yield during the five months winter season of 1954 was eStimated at about 36,500, approaching onefifth. Angling effort in the winter season amounted to 21,700 anglerhours, as against 87,000 anglerhours in an ordinary open season, about one quarter. The angling effort in the winter season had been distributed as follows: — June 22 per cent; July 20 per cent; August 14 per cent; September 15 per cent; October 29 per cent. As regards location, winter angling effort had been dir- j ected mainly against mature fish in the rivers, 73 per cent of the fishing being so applied, while 27 per cent was expended in the Lake. This was a reversal of emphasis from summer angling, when about 23 per cent of the pressure was applied on streams and 77 per cent on the Lake (about 45 per cent in the open water and as much as 32 per cent at the river mouths). Size Of Fish The average size of mature fish in the rivers remained very constant through the winter at about 22$ inches and 5 lbs. The mixture of mature and immature fish in the Lake was appreciably smaller in average size at 21 inches and 4 lbs. The proportion taken of smaller trout under 21 inches (indicative of the number of immature I fish) was three times as high in the Lake as in the rivers, but effects would be limited because I there was greatly lighter angling pressure on the Lake. The condition of fish killed remained remarkably uniform in both lake and rivers, though in t both it was slightly lower in Octo- J £ (Continued on Page Two) *v

(Continued from Page One) ber than earlier. The proportion of poor conditioned fish rejected by anglers during the winter was 5 per cent for the Lake and 4 per cent for the rivers, considerably lower than in the previous open season, when comparable figures were 15 per cent for the Lake and 10 per cent for the rivers. The catch per angler-hour did not prove exceptionally high at any period either in Lake or rivers. The overall catch figure for the district was estimated at about 0.57 per angler-hour, and the figure for the winter season was about 0.46. The catch per hour in the rivers did not change strikingly in the winter, but was a little higher in the last 3 months than in the first two months. The Lake catch was very low in June and July. By August it was about the same figure as the rivers, and better in September and October, but even then had only reached about the usual summer level. (A further report on the Conference will appear in our next issue).