Top fishing season dawns at Rotorua

David O'Connor catches the sunrise at Lake Rotorua. Picture / Alan Gibson

While most people are heading back to work, anglers are flocking to some of the country's top flyfishing spots as the warm weather generates a bumper early summer catch.

The river mouths into the Rotorua lakes are proving particularly popular after some of the biggest trout for a decade were caught at the beginning of the season.

Steve Smith, eastern regional manager for Fish and Game New Zealand, said large numbers of trout were heading to the cooler waters at river mouths to escape the warmer central lake water. In turn, they were attracting a host of anglers keen to hook a record catch.

"The peak summer is usually the best for that location, but the hotter early summer has meant more fish in the area," Mr Smith said.

At the Ngongotaha trap, close to 1000 brown trout passed in just nine nights in December. In an 11-night period at the same time in 2004, the total was less than half that.

Mr Smith said it had always looked like being a good year in the eastern region after a local angler caught a brown trout weighing more than 7kg (16lb) at the start of the season in October.

Fish were averaging 2cm bigger than last year, with some the largest since 1996.

Mike Cotter, owner of O'Keefe's Fishing Specialists in Rotorua, said the season was proving to be one of the best in memory "and that's coming from people I know who have been fishing here for 30 years or more".

This was helping to attract a lot more people to fishing, Mr Cotter said, particularly families, creating something of a boom for the pastime.

"So get out there and enjoy it."