AERIAL FISHING SURVEY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28792, 13 January 1959, Page 7

AERIAL FISHING SURVEY

Census Of Rotorua Lakes “The Press” Special Service ROTORUA, January 12. If an angler went fishing fairly regularly in the Rotorua district during the Christmas-New Year holidays, the odds are that he is now on the way to being recorded in statistics for the Internal Affairs Department. Hundreds of fishermen were spotted in the regular aerial surveys of the Rotrua lAkes made by rangers of the wildlife division. The surveys are made monthly through the fishing season .as part of a long-range census designed to find out how heavily the lakes are being worked by fishermen. The census covers the nine main - fishing lakes—Rotorua. Rotoiti, Rotoehu, Rotoma, Okataina, Okareka, Tarawera, Rotomahana and Rerewhakaitu. One survey is always carried out at the height of the holiday season. Fishing is then at its peak and hundreds of boats work their way slowly up and down the water of the lakes. To fly in an aircraft on one of these surveys is to see the patchwork beauty of the Rotorua lakes district unfolded like a giant mural. But there are practical advantages in counting the fishermen from the air. Every boat stands out like a spot of black paint on a mirror. Even from 1000 feet it is possible to see rod and line silhouetted against the deep blue of the water. To do a single survey of the nine lakes by any other method than from the air would probably take two men the best part of a day and a half. By the time the fishermen had been counted on one lake most of the others would have gone home. By using the aircraft two men —pilot and observer—can do the job and be back at the Rotorua airstrip within 45 minutes. Two Flights Daily / To catch as many fishermen as possible on the water, one flight is made in the early morning and another in late afternoon. At ! these times fishing is nearly always at its best. As the aircraft flies over the i water both pilot and observer . keep a sharp lookout for boats > hidden near the shoreline and for > lone fly-fishermen standing like , posts in shallow water. No fisherman is counted unless j his line is actually in the water 5 as the aircraft passes over. As the weather has e marked effect on the numbers and distribution* of fishermen, a note of 1 these is always made before each 1 survey begins. ’ On the Saturday afternoon after 5 Christmas, 60 fishing boats were - counted .on Lake Rotoiti and 67 on Lake Rotorua. In addition t there were about two dozen fiys fishermen working the shallows. These numbers are normally reached only at Christinas, and at the operfing of the lakes fishing season in > November. -One of the objects of th© aerial’ Census will be to find out not only what lakes are most heavily, fished, but also when most of the fishing is done. ' “From the point of view of management of the Rotorua fishery the census must provevery useful,” said the conservator of wildlife at Rotorua (Mr B. A. Vercoe). “There is no point in our ) spending a lot of money to stock a lake with trout if there are i only a few people trying to catch • them.”