Lake Rotoiti

Lake Rotoiti sits at about 620 m in Nelson Lakes National Park, with the village of St Arnaud on its northern shore. It is deep, to 82 m, cold and clear, ringed by beech forest that runs down the mountains to the water. The Travers River feeds it at the southern head, and the Buller River starts at its outlet in West Bay. It holds a good population of self-sustaining brown trout. The average fish runs 1.4 to 1.8 kg (3 to 4 lb), and bigger fish come out every year.

Most of the fishing is from a boat. The forest grows to the water and makes the shoreline hard to fish, so anglers troll, harl or spin along the drop-offs. Large streamers such as a Parson's Glory or a Rabbit fly are the usual trolled and harled flies, and a Toby, a Tasmanian Devil or a Cobra are the usual spinners. A fly angler working from a boat or the few open edges does best with large, heavily weighted nymphs in sizes 10 to 14. In the warmer months, fish come up along the shoreline for terrestrials, best in the early morning and the evening. The two places most often named are the Buller outlet and the Travers mouth at the head of the lake.

Kerr Bay, next to the village, has a ramp and two jetties, and West Bay has a ramp near the outlet. Water skiing is allowed on Rotoiti, so the lake is busy on summer afternoons, and calm early mornings fish best. Jet skis are banned. A water taxi runs from St Arnaud to the jetty at Coldwater Hut at the head of the lake, or you can walk there in about 3.5 hours. Longfin eels gather at the jetties. They are protected, so do not feed or fish for them. Lake snow, an invasive algae, is in the lake: dry your gear for 48 hours before you fish another water.