Reel Life March 2024

The reports from around the country tell us that there has been some fantastic fish caught recently.

Check out our regional reports above/below to see some great fish that have been caught by anglers recently.

Fish are more active now that we have started to get some slightly cooler temperatures.

With the drought through large parts of the South Island, anglers there will need to look for areas of continual flow in Rivers and we recommend targeting the lakes in the South Island as these are generally cooler bodies of water and the trout are more active.

Above: Fox Carnachan with his personal best brown from the Ruamahanga River (Credit Hamish Carnachan)

FISH & GAME WELLBEING AND MENTAL HEALTH STUDY

For those anglers that may not be aware, Fish & Game is currently conducting an angler wellbeing and mental health survey and if you haven’t yet participated, we would love to hear from you.

If you have participated, thank you! If you're interested in participating, the survey will ask a bit about your trout fishing and outdoor recreation habits and request some info about you before getting into questions about your wellbeing and mental health.

For more info and to participate, click here.

We're looking forward to hearing from you and appreciate your support! 

PHOTO COMPETITION WINNER

Damon Mathfield’s early morning mission to Lake Rotorua has come up trumps in the February’s Fish & Game Licence photo competition.

He’s the monthly winner of the $250 Kilwell Sports voucher and now has a chance of winning and additional $1000 Voucher from Kilwell Sports in the Grand Final.

If you’ve got a photo you want to enter March is the last month, click here to enter your image in the Fish & Game Licence Photo Competition!

WORK UNDERWAY-DRIFT DIVES & SALMON COUNTS

 Our staff have been out drift diving a lot of our rivers since Christmas.

Drift Diving gives us a great insight into fish populations and the habitat those fish live in.

In our big South Island east coast salmon rivers, staff will be starting their annual salmon counts.

These counts are imperative for us with the ground-breaking adaptive management model we use to manage this fishery.

These counts, and the use of the season bag-limit and harvest card are enabling us to increase the number of spawning fish returning to the spawning grounds and reduce harvest.

If you want to learn more about the science behind the salmon, click here for this stuff.co.nz video.

DESIGNATED WATERS FISHERIES

Some of our Designated Waters fisheries close at the end of April, so if you haven’t had a chance to get out there and try them out we recommend doing just that.

The new Designated Waters System has been designed to limit overseas anglers use of these fisheries to let Kiwi anglers have a fair go on them.

Our monitoring of these fisheries has shown that Non-Resident (overseas anglers) use of them has markedly decreased.

We’ll also be sending out a bunch of surveys to those that have purchased a designated Waters Licence to get their feedback on the operation of the system.

Tight Lines

The Team at Fish & Game NZ.