Wellington Reel Life August 2019

Season Promises Big Trout

While our drift dives have shown a number of key rivers are down in trout numbers, the really exciting thing is they are up in fish size.

Across the board we’re picking there’ll be more larger fish this season and some potential giants too that could push into the trophy category.

This prediction is based the largest beech seeding event in 40 years having occurred last autumn. Such an event results in plagues of rodents because of an abundance of food and, as we all know, trout love to eat mice and rats that find their way into the water – it enables the fish to put on size very, very quickly!

That aside, the 2019 drift dive surveys of the Hutt River shows a very respectable 40 trout/km.

While this is a slight decrease on the previous season, more large browns were observed in all reaches.

Like other rivers sourced in the ranges throughout the Wellington Fish & Game region, the Hutt trout have got the potential to grow very because the catchment is likely to have been affected by the beech tree mast and the resulting rodent plague that the Department of Conservation is warning about.

For many Wellington anglers the prospect of trophy trout on their doorstep is a very real one this coming season!

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Hamish Carnachan, Wellington Fish & Game Communications/Field Officer.