Lake fills to gills with trout | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

Each year more than 100,000 trout are released into Rotorua's lakes and in the last few days it was the turn of Lake Rerewhakaaitu to be stocked up.

Rotorua anglers did their bit for the re-stock, helping Eastern Region Fish and Game officers with a major trout release into one of their favourite fishing lakes on Wednesday.

Fish and Game officer Mark Sherburn said local anglers and his staff had released about 4000 1-year-old rainbow trout into Lake Rerewhakaaitu.

Rotorua Anglers Association members had been a great help clipping fins for identification at the Paradise Valley Rd trout hatchery and helping staff release them into local lakes, Mr Sherburn said.

"It's a labour-intensive process as all 100,000 fish liberated by the Eastern Region annually need to be either fin-clipped or tagged," he said.

"It's great to get the fishing club members involved as they've had a long-standing relationship with Fish and Game, contributing a lot over the years to our work. We value their contribution and want to see it continue."

Local anglers were also the backbone of their kids' "fish out" days, when veterans taught youngsters to fish.

It was appropriate that anglers had helped with the fish for Rerewhakaaitu because it was a popular spot for them, he said.

So far this spring, 35,000 trout had been released into Rotorua's lakes. The trout were transported in a purpose-built "trout truck", sign-written to make people aware of its important role.