Pahiatua Trout Fishing Carnival hauls in entrants

Back row - Mark White, Jordan Swansson, Dougal Pearce, Connor Beales, Malcolm Groves, Gerald White and Bronwyn Farquharson. Front row - Quinn Elliston, Annelise Fergus and Kerry Fergus.

The annual Pahiatua Trout Fishing Carnival was held from October 20 to 27 with 105 anglers registered but only half were lucky enough to weigh in a fish.

This year with all five rivers having a low and clear flow running it made the fishing hard. We had 27 more anglers and only two more trout weighed in.

The results showed the trophy winning fish were in the same condition as last year, the heaviest trout a rainbow jack 1.740kg was caught in the Manawatu River.

It was great to see so many fishermen on the river and in particular the kids of which we had 58 who had entered the junior and novice competitions.

Weigh-ins at The Post Office Hotel saw a steady flow of anglers turning up having a beer and trying to find out where all the fish have gone and which river they were getting caught in.

There were 38 rainbow and 34 brown trout plus 36 eels weighed in over the eight days, most of the eels were later released. See the public notice page of this newspaper for a list of our loyal sponsors, their generosity ensured participants enjoyed excellent spot prizes both throughout the week and the final prize giving.

The major drawn spot prizes winners were Bronwyn Farquharson who won the MacDougalls fly rod combo (adults), and in the kids' major spot prizes a fly rod went to Andrew Moynihan and Logan Hughes the spinning rod. For more photos, check out our Facebook page.

The Trophy winning Trout and eels were:

Heaviest Trout Open — Mark White 1.740kg.
Heaviest Trout Men — Mark White 1.740kg.
Heaviest Trout Ladies — Bronwyn Farquharson 1.480kg.
Heaviest Trout Junior — Jordan Swansson 1.220kg.
Heaviest Trout Novice — Quinn Elliston 1.540kg.
Heaviest Eel — Anna Swansson 5.060kg.
Best Conditioned Trout over 907gms/2lb — Dougal Pearce 53.60 cf.
Best Conditioned Trout Junior — Jordan Swansson 65.70 cf.
Best Conditioned Trout Novice — Annelise Fergus 58.70 cf.