Trouble brewing in trout paradise.
Millions of YouTube viewers watch New Zealand fly fishing videos, hooked on images of our stunning scenery and famously feisty fish.
Anglers travel halfway around the world to stand in pristine rivers casting artfully tied flies temptingly close to the jaws of big brown or rainbow trout.
The fishery is estimated to be worth at least $250m a year, but its popularity is raising red flags.
Lobby group Kiwi Anglers First is demanding an overhaul of freshwater fishing management to protect the recreational rights of New Zealanders and restrict visitor access.
LINK (via: Stuff)
It had to happen. Many of the very fine, non-guide, local flyfishers whom I met and widely fished Argentine and Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego with, for many footloose months during the 1990s to mid-Noughties, no longer fish:- priced out of and pushed off their waters by access gate-lockers, guiding operators and lodges catering for an affluent but now fast-dying wishlist-bucketlist Boomer Generation.
Big re-think required, I reckon, if you want the “NRA-type force” (from another posting here) and many many flyfishers to fight for the future their formerly accessible lands, fish and fishings, as, sure as heck, a few wealthy seasonal visitors aren’t going to save them: they need big outdoorsy numbers, now.
I completely understand the locals wanting to enjoy their waters again and this problem has popped up more than once all over the world. I hope they find a satisfactory resolution. Just a thought, as I don’t know a lot about the situation, but in our area some sort of state or local governing body can issue a zoning area for each of the interests and be enforced by local or area law enforcement. Either way there is no easy solution.