News good on fishing licences but tourists not

Fishing licence sales and compliance with the angling regulations have both been excellent so far this season, but visitors need to take responsibility for having the correct paperwork, Otago Fish and Game says.

Otago Fish & Game council operations manager Ian Hadland said licence sales were up 3% on last year, with a big lift in sales of day licences and non-resident season licences.

"It looks to be tourism-related with strong sales in the central lakes area and it appears plenty of non-residents are using the online fishing licence purchasing facility while travelling".

However, tourist anglers were both a blessing and a curse, he said.

Eight out of 11 unlicensed anglers caught by rangers this season were from overseas, half of them from Australia.

"Our overall offending rates are well down this season which is great but that would be even better if there weren’t so many tourists just picking up a rod and heading to the lake edge without a second thought about fishing licences or regulations."

New Zealand licence holders were becoming less tolerant of tourist anglers without a licence and had an expectation that Fish & Game would pursue and penalise them, just as it would any other angler caught fishing without a licence, Mr Hadland said.

"Through hard work and tenacity Fish & Game manage to extract instant fines out of 90% of unlicensed anglers before they leave the country."

Tourists were over-represented in the offending stats last year, Making up a third of all offenders.

"We’ll be ramping up our compliance effort to meet the expected boom in tourism, but we just don’t have the resources or the inclination to put signs up on every river and lake shore."

Leadership and fishing industry support would be needed to achieve that, he said.

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