Geoff Thomas: Lake set for season of giving

Hundreds of boats line the beach at Lake Tarawera before the opening of the trout-fishing season. Photo / Geoff Thomas

It started with the fearsome eruption of Mt Tarawera on the night of June 10, 1886. When the earth's roaring quietened and the sun finally poked through the volcanic ash soaring thousands of metres into the sky and the cattle on the east coast stopped bellowing in fear, a quietness descended.

The rumbling heard 150 miles away did not burst from the muzzle of ships' guns, as nervous residents had feared. It was nature unleashing her fury, and 153 people lay buried around Lake Tarawera, some under 25m of mud and ash.

Today, it is a serene landscape. The bush has returned. Red blossoms adorn the pohutukawa branches as Christmas approaches and, last weekend, 1000 fishermen scratched the deep waters of the lake as they searched for trout.

Many traditions hark back to the night of volcanic fury. The tourist boat carries visitors across the lake to the Rotomahana Landing, where they walk through to the small lake, where another boat completes the circle and they learn about the history.

The traditions go back to Con Campbell, the Scotsman who operated the original Tourist Department vessel for many years, and it was this link with the Highlands which was re-enacted last Friday to celebrate the start of another trout-fishing season. Boats lined the beach at the landing in their hundreds, and a pipe band marched down the hills to the stirring sound of Scotland the Brave. It was almost as if the bagpipes were encouraging the Scottish lads who gave England such a fright on the rugby field.

The lakeside festivities continued through the night until 6am, when the first lines were dropped, full of hope, into the dark waters.

There is another legacy of the famous eruption; one which has elevated Tarawera above all other lakes as a producer of fish. For the eruption injected so much material into the lake that it rose by 10m overnight. Then, over the years, mud, minerals and nutrients were washed into the water, creating a chemical balance which was ideal for supporting fish life.

So when the first trout were liberated into the lake in the early 1900s, they found an environment rich in food and grew to massive proportions. The lake became famous as the home of huge rainbow trout and anglers flocked to it from around the world.

Today, like all fisheries, the glory days have passed into legend. Old photos and monster trout mounted on boards with cracked fins and fading colours are all that remain to remind us of those days.

But careful management of the fisheries has stopped the decline and the lake still holds dense schools of smelt in the depths, while brown cockabullies glide across the shallows and snails and crayfish hide among the rocks. In another month, one of the most voracious killers in nature will hatch among the weed beds and stalk small insects and fish, and the trout will cruise the edge looking to hunt the killers themselves. These are the odanata, also called dragonflies, and the green larvae are a favourite dinner of the trout. Nature's mantra, kill or be killed, is not restricted to the Serengeti Plains.

Those trout fishermen lucky enough to put fish in the box last weekend were impressed by the size and condition of the fish they caught. They were silver footballs, pulling the scales down to 3kg or more; and yet these very fish had only been in the lake for 12 months. They were raised at the Fish and Game Hatchery in Ngongotaha, from eggs stripped from wild Tarawera trout in the winter of last year, then released into the lake a year ago as 1-year-old fingerlings.

Their mates will be pushing 4kg next winter when they return to spawn, so the lake and its inhabitants are in good shape. But the relentless cycle of seasons will always rise and fall to the pulses of nature and some years will always be better than others, for it is the weather which is the final arbiter in determining how the trout fare in the lake.

But the new season got off to a great start, with anglers and fisheries managers smiling.

And the mountain still broods, its attitude changing with the light, watching over the lake where it has been responsible for so many changes.