I have been meaning to head up into the Kaweka
mountains to fish the twin lakes for some time. finally I made the trip up this
past week for a day trip. The lakes are located 1 hour 15 up the Taihape
road.
Before getting to the lakes you take a nice 20 minute bush walk
before dropping down into the valley. This area has some incredible sights,
clear view of mount Kuripapango and other peaks of the kaweka range.
Back in the early 1900s Brown trout sourced from loch leven in Scotland,
were dropped in by plane. Since then they have thrived well, using the creek on
the northern shoreline to spawn. Trout numbers are high and an average sized
fish would weigh 1 pound and measure 30 centimetres. Part of the reason these
fish do not grow big is the high population and the very cold lake temperatures.
These fish feed heavily on terrestrial insects over the warm summer
months.
When I first got down to the lakeshore, I could already see many
small browns leaping about and rising to some kind of insect. Later on I
would work this out. I quickly moved away from the entrance which is popular
with walkers, and began to sight some fish cruising. These were all small fish
but for their length they are absolute tanks. After being unable to get them to
rise to an Adams, I swapped around seeing how they would react. I eventually
settled on a dry and a small hares ear dropper. The browns would quickly swim
up after hearing the flies drop onto the water, look up at the dry and then
race towards the nymph and stop just behind it. Something was off about it to
them obviously. This happened on around 4 fish.
I moved along the shore heading further round since I wanted to
cover the whole shoreline, since it is easily walkable. I made another change
to my flies and put on a soft hackle pheasant tail under an indicator. Trout were
constantly rising and I was making casts to where I thought the trout would be
heading. Eventually I sighted a trout and plopped the fly in ahead of it. This
time the fish raced forward and took the fly no questions asked.
Compared to the rainbows I am used to these Brown trout fight differently,
opting to try the shake the hook free and attempt to run and hide under the
weed beds. I got the fish to shore, it weighed just over a pound. Quite
stunning yellow / gold colours with many bright red and black spots. I released
the fish and continued walking the shore.
I was spotting many fish along with the extremely obvious rises,
but what I saw next baffled me. A trout was sitting in a hole between a large
weed bed. It can’t be a trout it’s too big, must be a log. Slowly the fins materialised
and the head became clear. I took my time and made my first cast count. The
soft hackle landed to right of the fish and surprisingly he didn’t bolt. He slowly
turned to find the nymph which had now sunk into the edge of the weed. The fish
dug it out of the weed and I struck. Perfect timing. The fish raced away out
into the lake on its first run. The fight was very good and the brown did its
best to shake the hook free along with trying to wrap me up in the weed. After
some tense moments I netted the fish.
This fish weighed 4 ½ pounds and measured 53cm. A possible lake record.
I got the photos and sent him on his way. A trophy for the lake I don’t
know how many would be bigger living in the lakes. I continued to move around
the lake and came onto a patch of fish jumping clear out of the water chasing
damsel and dragonflies. I had nothing to represent them so I changed to a small
dry hoping to imitate the other small bugs flying around. I hooked fish one after
the other losing 4 and landing 4. This was all on a dry dropper, cast between
the weed beds. Some fish were even right up on the shore in the flooded grass
taking food off the surface. After I had totalled 7 fish caught and released I slowed
down to look for more fish cruising. I randomly stumbled upon a brown of over 3
pounds cruising the shallows, he took a red damsel right at my feet.
I think that was day well spent chasing small brown rocket ships. Many
things learnt about different sort of fishery, which is rare in the North
island.
Cheers
Coochdog wrote: That would be lake Opouahi,fished it once in the 90's nice little lake.Fish and game still stock it,not sure about tigers though.There is a stream close by that held some good fish too cant remember the name though,think it was the start of the Arpaonui river? |
1883
The American Brook Trout (well-thought of in Scotland as a good sport fish and a good table fish”) were sent up from Opawa, Christchurch, and released at Kuripapango. An express waggon was sent to Napier to transport them on arrival at the Spit, only five were lost. The Society retained 240 for breeding.
1930
Atlantic Salmon: The Committee was unsuccessful in introducing this fish into the Mohaka River. The Chief Inspector of Fisheries, Mr Ayson, expressed the opinion that the temperature in the lower reaches was unsuitable to acclimatise any species of salmon.
1943
Record Sized Trout: As a result of an inquiry by the Marine Department for details of the largest trout caught in Hawke’s Bay rivers, the following figures came to light.
Rainbow trout
19lbs. TukiTuki River -1949, Mr W. Potham.
Brown trout
15lbs. Central Hawke’s Bay - 1916, Mr H. Butler.
Mr W. A. Gunn reported that one angler caught from tutira in a day :
Jack Rainbow 8lb 5oz 3.77kg 64.1cm
Hen Rainbow 7lb 9oz 3.43kg 62.8cm
Jack Brown 7lb 8oz 3.40kg 65.4cm
1964
Salmon: A consignment of 2000 ova was received from the North Canterbury Society in May, 1964. A successful hatch was achieved, and in July 1200 unfed fry were liberated in a tributary of the Mohaka. The remainder were retained at the Hatchery as fingerlings.
It also seems that Niwa shows brook trout as being present in lake opouahi
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