Lake PUPUKE

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Originally posted by Rusky Rusky wrote:

Sick man bazza! LOL
 
Sadly I must confess I think you may be right Rusky.
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In my opinion trout from Pupuke are not the best eating trout,
even when fresh, but not very tasty at all if frozen for awhile.
 
If you have had one or two in the freezer for awhile, rather than
throwing them out or giving them to the cat, they do make a top
class snapper bait.
 
However be warned the skin is remarkably tough to penetrate, with
even the sharpest hook. Best to lay the cut bait skin down on wooden
baitboard & pierce with a sharp pointed knife or even better an iki
sticker. Then slide the point of the hook through the pierced hole 
from the skin side & presto, if there are snapper about they are as
good as caught.
 
Cheers
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Re using trout for snapper bait.
 
I can understand some "purists" may be appalled at the thought
of using trout as bait, however my thoughts are  as follows :-
 
I would not use a wild fish for that purpose, but Pupuke is a
"put & take" fishery, i.e. is stocked with fish that will not be
breeding, therefore are put there simply to be caught.
 
Nevertheless I do not fish for them specifically for bait, release
more than are kept, just that every so often have a couple that
have been in the freezer far too long.
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Try putting a small tube - about 1/2 an inch on line just above eye of lure - tubes from starbucks sugar stirrers work well
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Originally posted by Will Charles Will Charles wrote:

Try putting a small tube - about 1/2 an inch on line just above eye of lure - tubes from starbucks sugar stirrers work well
 
Hi Will
 
Not quite sure what purpose that would serve, other than an added visual effect
or to create a stream of bubbles.
 
Presume you are talking about trolling with a lure for trout.
 
Cheers
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Originally posted by Will Charles Will Charles wrote:

Try putting a small tube - about 1/2 an inch on line just above eye of lure - tubes from starbucks sugar stirrers work well
 
Presume you are talking about trolling a lure for trout.
 
What beneficial effect does threading a plastic tube onto the line have?
Is it a visual enhancement or possibly to create a stream of bubbles also
how do you get it to stay 1/2 inch above the eye or is it 1/2 " long & holding
against the eye?
 
Not that I troll for trout anymore, but nevertheless would be interested in
your answer.
 
Cheers
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Originally posted by bazza bazza wrote:

In my opinion trout from Pupuke are not the best eating trout,
even when fresh, but not very tasty at all if frozen for awhile.
 
If you have had one or two in the freezer for awhile, rather than
throwing them out or giving them to the cat, they do make a top
class snapper bait.
 
However be warned the skin is remarkably tough to penetrate, with
even the sharpest hook. Best to lay the cut bait skin down on wooden
baitboard & pierce with a sharp pointed knife or even better an iki
sticker. Then slide the point of the hook through the pierced hole 
from the skin side & presto, if there are snapper about they are as
good as caught.
 
Cheers
 
Bazza you raise a very interesting point and it could, I hope, morph this discussion but that is all good too as far as I am concerned.
 
I believe catch and Release is a fisheries management tool. Nothing more and nothing less. It can be and is absolutely justified that an angler may choose to release caught trout when there is no management reason to do so but they just feel good about it. There are also situations when an angler should release a fish for management reasons but don't feel good about it... all are legitimate. I get my ire up a bit when a fish is realised because some pretentious w*****r thinks it makes him better for doing so. in a nutshell a fish is released for their ego and not for good reason. I get even more pissed off when these folks tell people they should do the same based on their own flawed reasons.
 
In any fishery that can sustain harvest, is managed to sustain harvest and the angler is well aware  that the fishery will suffer no ill from the keeping of the catch then they should, without any ping of conscience, keep the fish.
 
The Waihou and Waimakariri fisheries are overpopulated with small fish and Fish and Game have, for years, tried to encourage people to kill as many of the small fish as possible for the health of the fishery.  There is nothing noble releasing a fish into a fishery that is over populated.... Killing it may be the very best option if you truly value the fishery. It's one of the reasons I have always thought a day on those two little streams filling the bag with 8 inchers would produce a veritable deadly concoction for nailing good snapper.
 
Of course there are also those that adopt the same philosophy with the Taupo Fishery... unfortunately DOC keeps telling us the fishery is in trouble and then, almost every year, reduce angler restrictions... it's such a contridiction... as anglers I reckon all should really limit their catch in that fishery until  someone has a handle on what is really going on... roll on more debate...
 
But I totally agree with you. Keeping a fish from a "puit and take" fishery should pang no ones concience and if snapper fihsing is more your bag than eating a fish that tatses like silt... more power to you!!!!Wink
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Wow Clark
 
I was very pleased to read your thoughts on this matter,
endorsing my own, however coming from such an
acknowleged & respected fisherperson would have to
add enormous credibility.
 
Cheers
 
 
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Originally posted by Clark Clark wrote:

[QUOTE=bazza]
 
 
 
The Waihou and Waimakariri fisheries are overpopulated with small fish and Fish and Game have, for years, tried to encourage people to kill as many of the small fish as possible for the health of the fishery.  There is nothing noble releasing a fish into a fishery that is over populated.... Killing it may be the very best option if you truly value the fishery. It's one of the reasons I have always thought a day on those two little streams filling the bag with 8 inchers would produce a veritable deadly concoction for nailing good snapper.
 
 until  someone has a handle on what is really going on... roll on more debate...
 
 
Clark
Your mention of the Waihou & Waimakariri being populated with small fish raises some very interesting questions.
 
My experience has been that most of the rivers/streams from Putuaruru, Matamata & the Waikato in general hold a disproportinate number of small fish. However with the possible exception of the Waimakariri most do produce some reasonable sized fish at times. I was with a guy who landed a 4 1/2lb rainbow from the Waihou once, but have not heard of anything near that since.
 
So perhaps for the purpose of this disscussion we should consider only the Waimakariri where as far as I am aware only undersize fish reside, albeit in large numbers.
 
First question :- Are they actually juvenile fish or underdeveloped adults ????
 
2nd. If underdeveloped due to the large population competing for food, why do they not
move elsewhere ?
 
3rd. The Waimakariri stream is relatively short & mostly comparatively shallow, so why do
so many small fish choose to over populate it, when a short distance away it joins the larger size Waihou & they are free move there or further down the system?
 
4th. The "catch & kill" edict or policy has been in force for over a decade now but seems to have made little difference. Why, as stocks are depleted, do others simply take their place??
 
5th. Other than being small, they appear to be reasonably healthy well condtioned fish, which would not be expected if there was an insufficient food supply. Does this suggest that they drop back down the river system at a certain size?
 
6th. Are fish breeding in this stream? If they were then that could partly explain the large population of smaller, but not the absence of their larger sized parents.
 
7th. Is it possible this river is populated by a strain of oversexed small adults & juveniles that choose to reside there ?????
 
8th. Has this stream every been officially netted in order to reduce the population to establish if this increases fish size & for how long a period of time???
 
I do not expect anyone can categorically answer these questions but any opinions are welcomed & could prove interesting.
 
One thing for sure, it is a ideal stream to introduce a beginner or a youngster to, to teach them the basics of nymphing, whilst producing results even if they are tiny fish.
 
Cheers
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Read it in a US magazine - stops the line from tangling the hooks on rapala jigs when casting and retrieving.

Will
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Ive got one of them Rapala lures, lethal as with them needle sharp hooks.  No success yet but need some more trials me thinks!
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Whew Bazza, a world of questions to be answered there, and I'm going to do my best because I think you raise some interesting and important points...
 
I cut my teeth fishing the Upper Waihou, Waimakariri, and Waiomou streams and some other little nameless gems of that area. Those rivers are where I learnt to fly fish and while I get to fish them maybe once per season these days I see very little change apart from the stinking fricking walkway up the best part of the Waihou and the access track into what was always our "secret Blue Spring" area where you never saw another angler and the fish averaged 3-4 lbs.
 
OK, I've got that off my chest.
 
The Waimakariri has a lot of fish in it to around the 3lb mark. Late in the season often more and some that will be up to 5 and bigger. The Waihou has a higher percentage of bigger fish than the Waimak. Just because you don't catch them up there doesn't mean they are not there... I will give you some tips for targeting the bigger fish toward the end of this... One of the main problems is getting your fly to them away from the throngs of smaller fish.
 
Back in those days... a long time ago, Rowen Strickland was the fish and game officer for that area and he explained the situation with those streams thus:
 
Both offer miles and miles (In their upper reaches) of perfect spawning water which, due to the spring creek nature of them, rarely floods. Neither have eels as the falls at Okororie on the Waihou prevents their upstream migration. Very few cormorants seem to frequent the area either.
 
This adds up to the "perfect" reproduction conditions. Lots of spawning, no floods to wreck the reds, few predators to reduce the fry and fingerling's which result.
 
Trout, like many fish, will if overpopulated, stunt to some degree. A bit like putting a goldfish in a bowl... it's a goldish... put it in a lake and it becomes a bloody great Carp.
 
Trout will ordinarily want about 7 ft of "personal Territorial space" per foot of it's length so it's easy to see how a stunting mechanism will come into effect with these fish when this is forcibly reduced to only inches per fish. There are too many fish. Many of those fish do drop back and in the less atractive areas around Okororie there ares ome very fine catches to be made. There are monstors all the way down at Paeroa but the river a there is so ugly a 20lber wouldn't persuade me to fish it. Most of the fish in the upper reaches are, I believe, juviniles as evidenced by near all of them still having parr markings. But by the time the whole transient thing has happened, so has the next spawning. There's no shortage of food... the biomass of these creeks is incredible.
 
Way's to reduce their numbers? Netting has been found to be ineffective in both streams due to the high amount of weeds. If you can get a drag without pulling 500lbs of weed you don't get the fish because they have so many cress and weed areas in which to hide. There are more "big" fish there than most anglers believe so methods of trying to get a "mass kill" are inappropriate. (Anglers have been proven to be the least most reliable method of guaging a streams fish population or health... I hate that factBig%20smile)
 
I founded the Matamata Freshwater Anglers Club in about 1977 and right from its inception the problem of these streams was a major focus for us. As you correctly say the situation has not improved a huge amount. I think this is because the message has not been brought across strongly enough to many anglers that the wanton act of catching a small fish and throwing it in the blackberry is actually a good thing to do.
 
I believe anglers may be the only answer to the woes... even organised cull days!!! Maybe some radical stuff like they have with Carp... make it illegal to return any fish under 12 inches?? Blasphemy or inventive fisheries management... I don't know!
 
OK, so how do you catch these bigger fish I talk about??? Don't fish in the same part of the stream as everyone else. The bigger fish, almost exclusively, live and feed in the eddies that are prevalent all along the edges and entraces to each pool or where the current hits the bank or cress beds on both streams. In many instances you will need to "dap" for them as it is near impossible to get a cast into these places without drag and given the conditions the fanciest mend, roll or curve cast, or stack mend, usually just spooks them.
 
Sneak up the edges to these back eddies and keep very low (I usually crawl up completely prone), full camo if you can and look into these small eddies, usually at the head of pools. The fish are often quite easy to see as the white sand builds up in the eddies. The fish will be facing into the current so may well be looking directly at you... be prepared to back off and make a huge circular stalk around the other side of the eddy to make a cast... dap......
 
Nymphs or dries both work well. If you practise this method exclusively your average size will come up to 16 - 18 inches on both of these streams but your catch rate may not be high, but you'll be surprised at how many 3 lb plus fish you start to encounter. By blinding or wading up the middle fishing the seams where you would ordinarily fish you will encounter the plagues of small fish.
 
One of the reasons these streams offer such a great resource to the competitions is for the high points possible with high numbers of small fish. many of the popularised techniques by competitive anglers on these rivers are specifically designed with those fish in mind... unless you are after a mess of snapper bait forget them....
 
For introducing kids or newcomers to the sport I believe these streams to be the finest about... Instant action and only 30 minutes from where they can haul (literally) a 20lb brown out of the Ngongataha.
 
It's back to NZ methodology of softly softly, sneaky, sneaky and staying in cover....
 
 
 
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Thanks for that Clark, a great insight into these streams. I love fishing these creeks, especially the little gems. And some of them do get some very nice browns in late autumn - a real bugger to catch though. Blind casting catches mostly only little fish in my experience. Moving slowly and stalking certainly highlights the bigger fish. The great thing with these streams is you can fish a dry all day - pure bliss.
 
There are bigger resident fish around - even the Waimakiriri has 5 and 6lbers. Very few people catch them though.
 
I know that I should toss the little fish onto the bank, but I just can't do it anymore, that would detract from my day's fishing. I'll happily harvest a bag of lil rainbows if someone has a use for them though.
 
I don't think that angling can really ever cure the overpopulation problem. There are too many fish and too few anglers. And most of these streams aren't fished over anything like their full lengths.
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Hi Clark
 
I would like to add my appreciation to Upstreams' for
your reply, explanation & much more, to the questions
presented.
 
Cheers
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Originally posted by upstream upstream wrote:

 
I know that I should toss the little fish onto the bank, but I just can't do it anymore, that would detract from my day's fishing. I'll happily harvest a bag of lil rainbows if someone has a use for them though.
 
I don't think that angling can really ever cure the overpopulation problem. There are too many fish and too few anglers. And most of these streams aren't fished over anything like their full lengths.
 
I think you're quite right Kevin
 
I couldn't approach it that way either unless... I was local, fishing it all the time and my sole intention was the health of the fishery. If I was trying to enjoy a days sports it would be hard to includethat in it.
 
I also agree it would be essentially pointless unless done in a regular, organised fashion for as long as you wanted change. It could never stop...
 
So ultimately, these streams are unlikely to change unless some for of controllable predation can be found and in NZ we know well the situation with introducing predators to control things......
 
 
Hmmm perhaps a couple of Otters :)
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Went to pupuke today... got 2 hits but both got away before reaching the bank after spending an hour casting, but they seem to be undersize anyways so I didnt really mind.

Anybody know if F&G are going to re-stock Pupuke this year? Some browns would be nice!!
 

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Originally posted by Kenshin Kenshin wrote:

Went to pupuke today... got 2 hits but both got away before reaching the bank after spending an hour casting, but they seem to be undersize anyways so I didnt really mind.

Anybody know if F&G are going to re-stock Pupuke this year? Some browns would be nice!!
 

 
Hi Kenshin
 
Yes that is a good question, as the population from the last release must be
substantially depleted by now, considering the catch rate & the fact they are
presumably not breeding.
 
Altho personally I have never caught one, I am given to understand that
reasonably sized browns are there for the taking. I was told the preferred
method of targeting them, is to bottom fish using a worm bait or suchlike,
rigged in such a fashion that it hovers just above the weed, altho it can also
attract the attention of eels.
 
The other suggested method is to use a baby perch imitation, as these are
allegedly the favoured food source for browns. If this is true, then I guess
a baby perch as bait would be even more enticing & apparently using any
bait that already exists in the lake is legal. If koura are present in the lake,
then presumably they would prove even more enticing to browns, however
the question remains as to if, it it legal or not, for Pakeha to remove them.
 
Cheers
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I asked that question primarily as you say and I reckon too the trout population has been depleted and considering winter is coming in couple of weeks which may dissapoint a lot of anglers trying pupuke for the season. The interweb says the last time it was stocked was May last year with 500 rainbows with a competition the following weekend!, maybe they could try and double it this time. Not on one shot, but maybe half in the start of the season and half at the end to accomodate for the  summer.

Theres tremendous amount amount of perch in there, as I could not count how many perch I had caught from that lake while spinning. Frustrating as sometimes you think its a trout as you reel in the hit, just finding its a perch after it reaches the jetty or bank. Browns should be able to survive and fatten up on that lake, and may control perch population. I havent seen any koura on pupuke or any form of crustacian but a lot of snails on the weed, which a lot ppl agree trout feed on them.

Breeding maybe next to impossible as theres is no stream for spwning.

Are browns really that peculiar? I might try a floating rig sometime then. :D Thanks!

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Interesting to hear about the perch hitting the lures.  Little buggers.  What side are you fishing kenshin?
 
Im going to be giving Pupuke a go next week with a bit of spinning in the evening.
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The info re the favoured food for brownies in Pupuke was given to me
by the ranger who checks the licences.
 
I realise now I may have misquoted him, in stating baby perch were
the favoured food for brownies, as I seem to remember he actually said it
was tench & a green Tasmanian cobra was an ideal imitation for them.
 
Sorry about that.
 
Cheers
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