Troutnut Forum > Fly Fishing Discussion > Burks' New Zealand commentary
| GONZO | April 12th, 2007, 10:39 am | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 952 | A few years back, I was looking through a friend's copy of B. D. Burks' "The Mayflies or Ephemeroptera of Illinois." I was looking for some answers to some identification issues, and even though many revisions have occurred since its publication, it was very helpful. But the thing that stuck in my mind ever since was his commentary about introduced trout in New Zealand. Although I've never had the privilege of fishing there, I've read two things about the fishing that stand out. First, though the trout can be huge, they are generally not numerous, especially in streams. Second, there are very few significant mayfly hatches to match. Until I read Burks, I had just assumed that mayflies were never very common in NZ. According to Burks, my assumption was erroneous. He said that because the mayfly species in NZ hadn't evolved with the trout, they lacked specific defenses and the introduced trout simply ate most of them! It made sense, but this was the only place where I had read that. I was wondering what some of our insect/trout experts thought about this, and whether similar things have been documented in South America or other places where trout have been introduced. | |
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| Konchu | April 12th, 2007, 12:11 pm | |
| Indiana Posts: 212 | Introduction of trout above waterfalls in parts of western North America have been hard on some aquatic insects. | |
| DMM | April 15th, 2007, 1:02 am | |
| Posts: 141 | How long ago were the mayflies significant? Northern NZ is an environmental mess. It's rare to find a stream with native plants in the riparian. In southern NZ, the rivers are pretty wide and "riffly" (natural, but limits some of the possible species). The insect community that was historically present differed greatly between the north and south part of the island. The lack of mayflies could be due to any number of things. I don't know that the trout would wipe out the mayflies. I don't know much about the native NZ fishes, but I'm sure that there were insectivores present for a long time. Many fish eat insects, not just trout. Of course, I wont rule out the trout explanation, I just don't think it can be so definitively stated. | |
| David | ||
| GONZO | April 15th, 2007, 10:33 am | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 952 | Hi David, It's been a while since I read Burks' comments (and I really don't trust my memory the way I once did). I'm trying to recall if he made any comments about native fishes relative to this. I think he did, but I can't be sure. Anyway, it's possible that I've overstated his case. I even suppose it's possible that Burks overstated the case, but that error is much more likely to be mine than his. ;) | |
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