Tongariro brown

[jimsnarocks]

Awesome fishies Mike. I still wear my TALTAC club pin on my cap. The one you gave me. Looks like you had a good day out. Thanks for sharing. Jim

[JeffHamm]

Hi John,

I'm not normally one to 2nd guess the biologist, but in NZ the Rotorua and Taupo areas are huge fisheries and tourist industries. There's a view that Rainbows are worth more, considered easier to catch, put up a more impressive fight (jump more, etc), so browns are often viewed as something to be removed. The decision to remove browns is an attempt to reduce the practice of C&R, because the fish population grows to such a size that the fish end up being smaller. In the early 1900s they netted tons of fish to remove them, and for a couple seasons the remaining fish were massive (I'll try and remember to look the details up and report on it, but it's scattered through a couple books I've not read in a while). The past few years the fish have been smaller than usual, so the idea now seems to be to reduce the competition by removing the unwanted browns.

Much of the goal by the fisheries here is to maintain a viable commercial industry, and brown trout are considered bad for business.

In the end, though, this ist a fishery that won't be hurt by people keeping a few more fish.

- Jeff

[Mike Thomas]

Thanks for all the comments guys, it is an interesting debate for sure. As a matter of interest the Brown had no small fish in its gut contents, but it did have a mouse and a few caddis nymphs.
Jeff I think you are on the money with the smelt comments and I believe that DoC want to spend some money on research into the smelt and how to improve the smelt population. I think the Brown trout have only become a problem on top of the lack of smelt, but at this stage they can do nothing about the smelt so they are concentrating on doing something about the Browns.
Jim the trout was caught in the TALTAC agm weekend tournament. Glad to hear you are wearing that badge while fishing!
All the best.
Mike

[JohnScott]

...As a matter of interest the Brown had no small fish in its gut contents, but it did have a mouse and a few caddis nymphs....

Dessert ??

[JohnScott]

...Much of the goal by the fisheries here is to maintain a viable commercial industry, and brown trout are considered bad for business....

I wouldn't pretend to have any real insight into a far away local situation, whether here in the States or in another country. Just pointing out that people who make their careers and livelihood in things like fisheries biology are generally good people, with good information and ideas, trying to do the right thing, at least the ones I've met in the U.S. National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. BLM, and various state agencies involved with fish, wildlife, and parks.

I do find it interesting that browns are considered bad for business down your way. I can't recall N.Z. being touted for rainbow fishing - most everything that I have noticed or that has stuck with me has been about the big browns down there.

John

[JeffHamm]

Hi John,

I fully agree. Most of the people who would be doing the front line work, and the research, and such are good people motivated by trying to figure out what's going on. However, the final decision about what to act upon is made by people who's primary concerns are the bottom line, and that can skew the interpretation of the data before them. They are trying to manage a tourist industry, not a wild trout population (all the trout are introduced here; the rainbows came from the Russian River in California. Apparently some years ago there were trout ova returned from NZ to the Russian river to help restore the fishery there. The browns came from Scotland, I think?)

The south island is well known for it's brown trout fisheries. Taupo and Rotorua (the two major spots in the north island) are primarily rainbow fisheries, but there are lots of browns as well. The browns make for the photo opps in the advertising, but big rainbows are what most people catch when they get here!

Anyway, the thing is there's a history of people deciding the brown trout are the scurge and then trying to eliminate them in the thinking that this will restore the rainbows. It goes back to the early 1900s, and probably beyond. In the past, it has generally turned out that the problem was over popuation of trout which then ate up the food supply, resulting in the size of the trout reducing over the years. Although the report says there are "fewer trout", that usually means "fewer trophy sized trout", but that's an assumption on my part. Given the hit the smelt population took in Taupo a few years ago, and how that's been slow to recover by my understanding, it just seems to me that the historical reasons apply in this case.

Of course, that would mean that all fish should be caught, as the solution is usually to reduce to the overall trout population (both rainbows and browns), while letting the baitfish population recover! They did this before by netting out tones of fish then introducing smelt (the trout had eaten all the native fish that lived in the lake, which had few predators before). However, indescriminantly netting tonnes of trout which they are not allowed to sell (and so will just go into a dump somewhere) isn't going to go down well in todays world.

I didn't mean to disparage those doing the research. I just wonder if those doing the actual research are the ones making these suggestions that get implemented?

- Jeff