Changes planned for backcountry fishing licences
FISH & Game NZ is looking to change its backcountry fishing system, making it more expensive and harder for overseas anglers to fish the waters. Anglers from overseas may now face a limit of just five days of fishing in each region.
The designated waters licence system and the controlled fisheries system is set to replace the backcountry licence system. These are for waters which are high in demand by anglers and in isolated areas. Rivers such as the Hunter and Nevis in Otago are in the backcountry system.
The national proposal is up for discussion at a meeting of the Otago Fish & Game board next week.
The new proposed designated waters licence system distinguishes between resident and nonresident anglers.
It applies different management mechanisms to each group and the overseas angler is hit hard.
Any angler, regardless of residency, seeking to fish a designated water would need to hold a designated water licence. There are also controlled fisheries which would operate separately from the designated water system.
There is very much a distinct difference between the licences for residents and nonresidents.
The Otago Backcountry Fisheries is split into two zones, northern and southern.
The backcountry fisheries licence is effectively an endorsement on a whole season licence. A whole season licence holder can use their backcountry fisheries licence subject to the regulations that apply in that region.
The proposed changes will allow resident anglers the designated water licence for the entire angling season. It will be available free for the angler’s home Fish & Game region but will cost for each subsequent Fish & Game region. The price is yet to be finalised.
There will be no set frequency at which an angler can access rivers that are classified as designated waters.
In contrast, nonresident anglers will have a licence issued to fish any of the region’s designated waters on a specified day as opposed to being purchased for a specific river/catchment.
The cost is set to be higher than for a resident angler.
The number of day licences that a nonresident angler can purchase will be five per each Fish & Game region.
A report submitted ahead of the meeting said the designated waters system had been designed to help manage and redistribute the effects of nonresident angling pressure on specific fisheries.
Regions should be able to identify their own threshold for what constituted excessive angler use.
But for a guide, exceeding 50% of use being carried out by nonresidents was an obvious starting point.
The use of any legal lure with more than one hook with one point in a designated waters fishery was prohibited.
The upper reaches of the Greenstone River, which runs through the Thomson Mountains, are managed through a booking system for February and March.
Fish & Game Otago staff recommend the Greenstone River should be under the designated water system and also be controlled.
The report recommends backcountry fisheries Dingle Burn, Greenstone, Caples, upper Lochy, Nevis, Hunter, Young, Wilkin and upper Pomahaka Rivers become classed as designated waters.
The controlled fishery on the Greenstone River should also be retained.