Telling it like it is
One of the enduring characteristics of human nature that sometimes amazes and confounds me is our ability to forget or reinvent the past. Or put another way: our apparent predisposition to let the most recent events in our lives overwhelm our older memories and experiences.
Target Taupo - Issue 40
I found myself dealing with this trait while writing the feature article in this edition of Target Taupo. I was forced to recollect the details of some of the Lake Taupo trout fishing experiences of my distant childhood. It was a serious struggle to separate fact from fancy; to recall the past without colouring it with my modern knowledge and perspective. If my brothers or cousins read this they'll probably tell you I didn't have a lot of success - but I know where they're coming from too!
It sometimes seems that as anglers we tend to over-emphasise the current state of the fishery in our minds without looking at the broader context of time. So when fishing is good by any objective measure, we think it's fantastic. When it's mediocre, we think it's the pits.
However imperfect my own recall of the Taupo fishery, it is at least lengthy and I often have the privileged advantage of being able to consult reports, technical data and official files, as well as the equally aberrant memories of peers and associates. This has reinforced to me the vagaries of even recent memory.
Over the last few years I have reviewed a huge amount of information about the fishery, particularly from the last half-century, in the course of preparing submissions and appeals for resource consent applications. Much of that information covers the last 38 years in which I have had an on-and-off professional involvement with the fishery. I've had the opportunity to compare the public utterances of anglers, fishery managers, engineers, politicians and other bureaucrats with the sometimes-hidden realities of the time and the certainties of subsequent events.
If there has been one compelling lesson, it is that exaggeration, prevarication and hype, in other words "spin", will eventually be revealed for what they are. Short-term attempts to hide uncertainties or unpalatable truths serve no one well. From that comes an underlying principle about the way we should handle information - tell it like it is.
Inevitably, as managers of the fishery that we all cherish, our team has access to information and first-hand knowledge that few other anglers have. That is a privileged position and we have an obligation to impart that knowledge in a fair and accurate way. There is a huge temptation to think that good news is more important than good analysis. It makes us feel good and maybe even look good. Fortunately for me, the Fishery team is a bunch of realists who quickly cut me or their colleagues down if they detect a hint of irrational spin. And why not, too? They have to live with the consequences of rash or careless or indefensible predictions every bit as much as does the perpetrator.
So we encourage a culture of seeking to inform and explain that acknowledges the uncertainties where they are known, that analyses information as well as just transfers it, that provides historical perspective where it can and that tries to avoid the arrogance of being keepers of that information.
Especially, we try to emphasise the natural variability that occurs with a wild trout fishery, recognising the often-overwhelming dominance of nature over the intervention of humans, and encouraging anglers to accept and adapt to these influences. In the absence of long-term adverse environmental changes, it is realistic to expect that the conditions experienced in any one year will almost certainly come again in one angler's lifetime. The good and the bad.
So we are careful to remind people to make the most of good fishing opportunities while they are here because they inevitably won't last. Remember 1998, following the eruptions of Mount Ruapehu, when Taupo trout were so big and fat that few living anglers could recall a parallel? In the following two years there was a boom in trout numbers. Yet at the same time, fishing in Lake Otamangakau for trophy-sized trout was relatively poor. I think many anglers were deaf to the evidence and explanations which all pointed to short-term changes in the context of a stable management framework.
Funnily enough the tables are turned this year. The Taupo fishery is in a downward phase of its cycle. Trout numbers are average and size and condition are not great as the late-migrating spawners missed the feeding flush on smelt in the spring. But given relatively normal rain and flows over the next nine months we can look forward to a return to the quality of fishing we were used to, and for the most part happily accepted, before the recent boom years. What disappoints me a little are the comments from some anglers who didn't hear what we said two or three short years ago and who now can only see doom and gloom for the future.
At Lake Otamangakau on the other hand, the fishery is in a boom cycle. Numbers of spawning trout through the Te Whaiau trap to date are the second highest in the nine years of record. And the size and condition of fish are close to the best they have been. Even at this early stage of the season there have been more "double figure" (4.54kg+) rainbows trapped than for the whole of last year. Our advice to you is to make the most of these opportunities next season, but remember it won't always be like this.
All we ask is a fair hearing, an open mind, a willingness to consider all the information in context, and honest feedback. So please read the articles inside carefully. They are mostly written by avid fellow anglers who just happen to be experienced and qualified fishery management professionals. They understand trout fishing, but especially they understand and are committed to our Taupo fishery. They would be just as disappointed as you to be misled; to have raised false hopes or unwarranted gloom by poor analysis and unrealistic predictions. So we'll keep telling it like it is.
Enjoy your fishing as you find it. Nothing is more certain than that it will be different, for better and worse, in the future.
Tight lines
John Gibbs
Fishery Area Manager
Want more information on the Taupo Fishery or wish to make a comment on any of the Target Taupo articles please see contact details below.