Catch-and-release fishing was the style around Lake Dunstan yesterday during the annual Biff The Old Trout fishing tournament.
Children and teenagers under 15 competed for the longest and heaviest fish, but rather than attending a prizegiving with catches of the day, they turned up at Cromwell's Golden Gate Lodge armed with rulers, Otago Daily Times newspapers and digital cameras.
With an emphasis on catching and releasing brown and rainbow trout, salmon and perch, the competition required participants to photograph their fish next to a ruler on top of the newspaper proving its length and its capture on the correct day.
Newspapers and rulers were given out at registration to about 30 entrants fishing from boats and three fishing from land.
Competitors were limited to fishing Lake Dunstan and the Clutha River, not including inflowing tributaries.
Size was not so important, with entrants able to add the sizes of all fish they caught during the day for a total length.
Phil Brodie won the land section with a single brown trout (550cm).
Peter Stuart came first in the boat section with 4.75m of fish.
Peter Stuart also landed the largest fish (2.01kg), also a brown trout.
Last year's winner in the land section had 1.95m of fish, while the winning boat section entrant tallied 4.41m.
