has not had a liberation for 10 years at least...went up there today and the river is dead...fished lower middle and upper reaches and only saw 1 brownie.

i have fished this river for 30 years and have never seen it so barren of fish.....plenty of food as every rock has caddis under it and the cidada's and green beatles are every where....where have all the fish gone?

have talked to my dad and uncle who fish at least twice a week up there and niether of them have caught a trout for three months....we pay our license fee like everyone else but what are we getting for it?  stuff all....c'mon fish and game give us a 10,000 release in the river and bring it back to its former glory...which was a very underated fishery.

there is a certain amount of natural spawning occuring in the river (rainbows) but from what i can gather from uncs and pa is that browns have moved in and canniblized the fingerling rainbows..when i started fishing the waioeka river at aged ten ,there was no such thing as a brown trout in the lower to middle reaches....

well thats my *****...maybe someone who knows abit more about  might shed some light on where all the rainbows have gone

hey herring...im more than familier with the forks area..used to cull for nzfs then doc..man there was some great fishing back then...i will contact fish and game and hopefully they will  or can get a plan in place.

my dads 80 and can only acess the easier places but will release most fish and only take one if we have a family gathering...wasn't that many years ago we would catch and release 5-10 fish in a two mile stretch of river..up to 6lb...

thanks for the info

Browns are no more cannibals than the rainbows. If they were the river would full of big fat browns right? But you say you only saw one small one? The old myth that browns are cannibals is just that a very old myth. trout are opportunists and eat what they want when it is available. A raibow will happily eat its young, so will a Brown.

As a Councillor for eastern Fish and Game I can tell you the staff have a good handle on the fishery. The floods are, as herring correctly pointed out, the culprits. releases would be a massive waste of license holder revenue. Our fisheries are largely self sustaining. Wild trout fisheries, that's what makes them the envy of the world. The only places in NZ where releases can be justified are fisheries with limited spawning. To release 10,000 fingerlings into the Waioeka would be so much a waste as to just pour the license money into it. One flood would take them out too. The fishery will recover and you have to hope Mother Nature allows it to, as Herring said, it had, but the recent floods have done more damage. That's the way it is with a managed wild fishery.

I have to say I get a little pissed off when someone has a bad fishing trip and their first move is to start moaning about Fish and Game. To post on a forum and need to have someone point out that you should perhaps contact them to one pass on the information and secondly to get some real handle on it would have been, I would have thought, most people's first port of call. Fish and game is a system set up to be run by license holders... it only will be when license holders participate on that level by involving themseleves rather than just moaning about days when they don't catch fish.

Fisheries management moved past releases year ago because it isn't sound management practise as proven worldwide. Releases will almost never be the answer to improving a fishery and in most cases will actually damage it.

The fishing in NZ has changed for ever and fisheries like the Waioeka that have reletively easy access get a hell of a lot more pressure now than they did even 5 -10 years ago from the increase in Kiwi anglers and tourists... it will have its effects and we have to expect that.

If I sound touchy consider this. You make the statement "I pay my license fee like everyone else" and you want something from fish and game for it???

I pay my lisence fee like everyone else, I spend my time and my petrol money and running costs to sit on the council and help the fishery and the game then the thanks we get for it is people saying we are doing nothing. So I, for one, am doing more than just paying my license fee and I get the same fishing and abuse... what a great ****ing deal!

If you want a Put and Take fishery then expect your license fee to soar over $1000 per annum to sustain it and even then that probably wouldn't do it. If you have some suggestions on how we can stop the floods of recent years in the future please let the Council know, Steve would be pleased to know.

Clark

i have contacted steve and he sent a reply...which i never really expected(being a very busy man)i'll try and post it here....yes you do seem a bit touchy but when the lakes get releases every year even though they have a wild population then thats where you shoot yourself in the foot... its not just one trip not catching anything its the combined effort of 3 that have fished on average twice a week each for the last 3 months...also i would like to know what work has been done? apart from cutting acess tracks and signposting them.. maybe the locals at the pa could stop netting then the fishing might improve(no proof of this but its a widespread rumor in opotiki).any how this is steves reply

herring....as i try to get across ..this is three anglers fishing on average twice a week for three months

as to closing the river...hell man  my dads 81  my uncle is 76 im 40 for the retired ones there is nothing else to do..get some wood and have a fish....its a lifestyle thing for them..my dad spins and my uncle fly fishes and i spin..there is just very few fish in the river...ahh hell just must be the tourist $ in the lake fishery that these guys see...more licenses more money

I was fly fishing the Waioeka in late November for my first time, having spent a week in bush hunting and fly fishing the Wanganui river, almost every cast was hit, though this was private land and there was reduced pressure from anglers.

When i cam upon a spot in the Waioeka gorge and cast my fly into the water, a just legal Rainbow was caught.  I released it to live another day!  Continued to stop and drive down angler access roads and cast into very promising looking spots, nothing!

Tried for about two more hours and came back with nothing.  Noticed how low and warm the water was and put it down to that and the number of anglers fishing this river.

But i have heard that when the rivers are low, the fish are in good condition because of the abundance of food in smaller areas.

Any one else been having problems in this area?

Quote: Originally posted by dunnit on 10 January 2006

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but when the lakes get releases every year even though they have a wild population then thats where you shoot yourself in the foot..

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There are no Lakes in New Zealand with a sustainable wild population that is stocked.

Everything Herring has said makes perfect sense and I won't bother adding to it. Except to say that if you want to know more about what Fish and Game are doing you need only read the relevant pieces of the magazine or for more indepth info try requesting a copy of the Management plan... you'll get it.

Clark

"Taupo is a sad fishery compared to what it should be while Rotorua offers so much variety."

Why is it so sad, Herring? I'd be interested in hearing on how it should be improved.

Yea the scenery at Waioeka Gorge is amazing!  Tho I think it has its secrets, and thats why some people have trouble catching fish sometimes.

Tho good effort SH2 for catching one, I hooked up on my first cast in that river, thought it was going to be a god day, was not, only fish caught all day.

I only get out trout fishing rarely but I fished the Waioeka early this season and all I can say is that both the environment and the fishing were fabulous. My first visit too. Like SH2 I walked up from Redpaths and released 9 good fish, losing around 5 more on #2 wt gear. Best fish was around 6 lbs. Rivers change with conditions, we must have good days and bad.

The fenced off river, keeping stock at a well managed distance is a credit to Bob Redpath and any others involved. A beautiful river, clear water and challenging trout. Staying at the Redpaths farmstay was great too.

I could walk the Waioeka, not catch a trout and have a wonderful day.

Neal

Whats the water levels like now guys? was there in January and it was very low and warm.

ards, you aint wrong there, a day fishing is a better day then working!

9 fish aint that bad, i was there one day and only caught one trout on my first cast, all the other areas looked too shallow or had nothing in them. look forward to making a return trip down there sometime this year!

Cheers, Rusky.

Isn�t the fishing prohibited there now?