Anglers are being urged to show restraint when taking fish from Waitaki lakes this Christmas holiday.
"Limit your bag, don't bag your limit," Central South Island Fish and Game Council officer Graeme Hughes said, as Lakes Waitaki, Aviemore and Benmore come under increasing pressure from anglers.
A survey last year showed Lake Benmore was the most fished lake in New Zealand after Lake Taupo.
Mr Hughes, who is based at Kurow, is seeing more and more campers going to the Waitaki lakes with a lot of fishing gear.
Lake Waitaki, for the past 70 years, and Lakes Benmore and Aviemore, for 40 years, have provided reliable catches of trout and, more recently, salmon for anglers.
But Mr Hughes wonders whether this can continue or whether the catch rate will eventually outstrip natural regeneration.
"It has happened elsewhere but, to date, touch wood, it just keeps on keeping on," he said of the Waitaki lakes.
When more than 30 boats were trolling river mouths and shorelines at the lakes, he became worried about whether the fishery could sustain such angling pressure.
Future fish production was in the hands of anglers, who did not have to take limit bags of four trout and two salmon, he said.
Mr Hughes also reminded anglers about the regulation forbidding leaving fish refuse on banks when they were cleaned.
It must be taken away or buried, he said.
