Spawning Surveys 2007.

Hamish Stevens, Fish and Game Officer

Spawning surveys were carried out on various rivers in the Central South Island Fish and Game Region for both salmon and trout. Three staff members and a large group of volunteers from Ashburton, Timaru, Christchurch and Temuka assisted with surveying during the months of June and July. The results of the survey are shown in Table 1.

The Ashburton River system was well down on the previous years salmon redd count with Bowyers, Taylors, Maori outlet and the main river only containing four redds. Larger shingle size and the Ashburton River’s tendency to move shingle frequently made surveying the main stem near impossible but I would expect that some salmon spawning took place here.

Salmon redd counts in Deep Creek and Deep Stream was well up on last year. Redds for both streams totaled 540 this year, which is 338 more than last year. Interestingly, of the five salmon I checked in Deep Stream, two of them were fin clipped. This is similar to the 17% of adult salmon salvaged in the RDR that were also fin clipped. 

Trout spawning in the Ashburton Lakes area was good with redd numbers similar or better than last year’s counts in Whiskey Creek, Gentleman Smith Stream and Lake Heron streams. Olivers Stream also had a late run of brown trout with 50 fish spawning here on the 29th July.

Salmon spawning in the Orari and Ohapi has increased this year with 10 more redds observed this year. Trout spawning was also up in this area. During the survey it was disappointing to see sheep carcasses had been left or deliberately put into the stream. ECan was notified of this and will be keeping a close eye on this area in the future.

I would like to thank all the volunteers who assisted with this year’s spawning survey. The time and effort that volunteers give up is greatly appreciated and without them it would not be possible to survey such wide range of rivers.  Letters of thanks have been sent to all volunteers.

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