Lure of the Lakes

Fishing novice PHILLIPPA JONES is guided through the Rotorua trout experience from hatchery pool to dinner plate.

I was willing to be hooked, I admit it. And I caught a fish - a two-year-old male rainbow trout. It weighed a respectable 2kg and measured 54cm.

I know all this because I had a professional fishing guide. Though I was sceptical, Adrian Trass was prepared to virtually guarantee I'd catch a fish.

Well, he didn't actually put it that way. He said we would be "very very unlucky not to catch one on Lake Rotorua".

But some guides do go as far as guaranteeing a catch. Trass is one of about 30 guides who take people fishing on Rotorua's lakes, and has been doing it for years.

He says all the guides have a formula for successful fishing.

"They have their own little idiosyncrasies. They'll swear by some pet fly or lure or the exact length of the trace, for example, and it all develops from what they've found is successful in the past.

"One thing we do mostly agree on, though, is that for trolling, the speed of the boat should be a steady two-and-a-half knots."

As I clambered into the 6m boat I thought of the last time I went fishing, with my father in his homemade ply dinghy about 40 years ago.

Dad always hoped one of his four daughters would show an inclination to spend the day bobbing about in the boat patiently waiting for a snapper to bite. One day without a nibble was enough for me, however, and I never got the fishing bug.

But for many New Zealanders fishing is an integral part of the psyche. People feel it's something their children have a right to be able to do.

I got my kids started with a length of bamboo, a safety pin and a ball of wool to see if they showed an inclination. Having the patience to stay interested seemed likely to be the secret.

I wondered if I'd have that patience as we untied from the lakefront on a beautiful spring morning, a couple of days before October 1, the official opening of the Rotorua lakes trout season.

Lake Rotorua itself is open all year round for fishing because of the abundance of fish.

I was well prepared. To get to know more about the fish before we headed out on the lake, I'd booked in at the Quality Hotel so I'd have two days to spend in Rotorua, and enough time to visit Rainbow Springs to look at trout in natural surroundings.

Well, nearly natural. A 25mm plate glass window gives an underwater view of one of the pools where four species swim.

The rainbows, introduced to New Zealand from California in 1883, are much the best looking with the red flashes along their sides.

A bag of pellets issued at the gate was greedily devoured by the fish, who woke up the instant food appeared.

Interestingly, trout from Lake Rotorua make a journey upstream into the park to spawn in the winter, negotiating their way by leaping up a "fish ladder" - a series of small waterfalls - to get to Rainbow Pool.

A prearranged visit to the Ngongotaha Trout Hatchery was even more interesting, once I got my head round the fact that trout fishing on Rotorua's lakes is an artificial, sustainably-managed recreational pursuit.

The manager of the hatchery, Steve Smith, says that the kind of gravelly streams trout need for spawning are plentiful everywhere else in New Zealand, but Rotorua's lakes are not fed by those streams.

Trout need to incubate their eggs in gravel where water flows through, keeping the temperature steady, bringing oxygen and taking away waste.

These conditions are created artificially in the hatchery by rerouting the pure water that gushes from a spring on the hill behind the hatchery through concrete tanks where the littlies grow to size.

At one year of age, tens of thousands of them weighing 100g are liberated into the lakes.

When they're caught a year later they've grown a millimetre a day and can weigh 2 to 3kg.

I forget the artificiality of it all as we speed off to Sulphur Point and I become absorbed in the task at hand: waiting to catch a fish.

For a novice, that's pretty much what it's all about, because once you know which way up to hold the rod, the guide does everything.

Sitting out there on the boat, there's plenty of time for theories about where the fish are today. They certainly don't seem to be at Sulphur Point.

We try trolling slowly along the edge of a precipice where the fish finder shows the profile of the lake bed suddenly plunging from 2m to 8 or 9m.

The fishing boats watch each other, circling and jostling politely for position. We take the lines out and remove tiny wisps of weed that detract from the attractiveness of the lure or fly.

Trass ties on different lures, alternative flies, and I watch the gently nodding tip of the rod intently for signs of a bite. Another couple of hours go by. We change location and even try weaving a zigzag course.

"The turns sometimes bring the fish on," says Trass, who is starting to look glum. "It doesn't usually take this long."

Tired of the drone and the smell of fuel from the outboard motors, I look longingly at Mokoia Island where we can land and have a soak in the hot pool.

According to the legend, Hinemoa hid there to warm herself after swimming from the mainland to be with the warrior Tutanekai.

I daydream drowsily about her, measure with my eye how far she swam ...

Suddenly there's a commotion. One of the reels set in a holder is letting out line very fast. The rod is snatched from the holder and thrust into my hands. It's my fish!

I'm wide awake now and listening to instructions: "Don't tug, their mouths are soft and you could lose the fish. When it wants to swim off let the line out, when it's tired reel it in. Be firm."

The fish thrashed and jumped and my guide, ever encouraging, said it was a beauty.

As it came in on the line he warned me it would take fright when it saw the boat and take off again, but no, it came meekly, and Trass scooped it up with the net.

It was quickly dispatched, weighed and measured.

Mindful of his client's sense of satisfaction, Trass set me up for the photo.

"Hold it out towards the camera, that way it looks bigger," he said.

Like the whole experience of fishing with a guide, it's all a little contrived. But I ate the fish and it tasted delicious.

Flyfishing - that must surely be the real thing.

Rainbow Springs

Lakeland Queen Cruises

Casenotes

* Thirteen lakes within 30 minutes' drive of Rotorua are actively managed by Fish & Game to provide a full range of fishing experiences to as many anglers as possible.

* About 40,000 fishing licences are issued in Rotorua each year. They cost $98 for a family licence, $75 for an adult whole season, and there are one-week as well as junior and young adult licences available at lower rates. If you go fishing with a guide they can provide you with a one-day licence.

* Licences allow fishing throughout New Zealand apart from Lake Taupo and they're available 24 hours on 0800 LICENCE (542 362).

* Rotorua is a one-hour drive from Taupo, Hamilton and Tauranga, three hours from Auckland, and five hours from Wellington.

* For a list of the fishing guides available in Rotorua, ph: Tourism Rotorua Travel office (07) 3485179.

* Rotorua Anglers Association: Club Secretary, PO Box 1083, Rotorua.

* The Ngongotaha Hatchery produces between 100,000 and 120,000 trout a year. Of these about 70,000 are released into the Rotorua Lakes. The hatchery is open 9 am to 4 pm and is in Paradise Valley Rd.