The legend of finding gold at the end of a rainbow – where did that come from? It might have been Ireland, the land of leprechauns, legends and stories tall, perhaps a bit like some of my columns!
The Coast is well endowed with those of Irish ancestry (look in the phone directory for names emanating from the auld sod), so it’s a good place to find rainbows and not only the colourful spans seen occasionally in the sky after a rare bit of Irish mist. There is also another type of curved phenomenon, the rare white rainbow, and yes, I have seen one here on The Coast. However, there has been talk of sightings of yet another sort of rainbow, the rainbow trout, or for those of you with a scientific bent, Oncorhynchus mykiss. This story is not about the end of the rainbow but perhaps the rebirth of the rainbow.
Rainbows were introduced originally from America as far back as 1883, and apart from the lakes and rivers of the Central North Island, they are not as widespread around NZ as the brownies.
Lately, there have been reports of sightings and apparently even some catching of rainbows in places on The Coast that are well outside their normal habitat. More on those sightings shortly. However, thus far, there have been no names of people associated with the sightings, which is perhaps in the tradition of the West Coast, because we have a No Name road up the Grey Valley and a No Town.
Yes, we have rainbows over here in the West Coast Region, mainly confined to faster-flowing water further up the rivers, such as the Upper Hokitika and Taramakau fisheries. Plus there are still intermittent catches of rainbows in the Grey Catchment, specifically in the tributaries such as the Ahaura. At present, there have been 2 reported sightings in Lake Poerua; someone saw a guy with one at the Poerua ramp, another local angler is said to have hooked and lost one also on Poerua, and a bunch of rainbows have reportedly been up a spawning creek at Poerua, plus an experienced angler, we’ll call him Dave, apparently got one in Lake Brunner. All are very interesting, but all are second or third-hand reports. So it would be great to have some evidence.
A key point that F&G make is that toward Autumn, the brownies colour up a bit more in readiness for spawning, so some brighter-hued fish might have been mistaken for rainbows. Fish and Game gets intermittent reports of rainbows being caught in the Lake Brunner/ Poerua system, but these usually lack verification. They have conducted trout surveys in the lakes numerous times over the last 30 years and have not had any turn-ups. They also say rainbows were released in Lake Kaniere inland from Hokitika around 15 years ago, and this coincided with a huge hatch of huhu beetles, which led to a rapid growth rate in the released fish. However, a couple of years later, they had all but disappeared. Where the heck did they go?
Rainbows were also released years ago into Lake Poerua in the 1980s and 1990s, but they didn’t seem to “take.” According to West Coast Fish & Game, further introductions haven’t been tried since then. The last releases of rainbows in the Grey Catchment were in the lower reaches in 2014 for children’s fishing events. A theory from another very experienced angler is that the released rainbows decided to head out of the lake, down the outlet and into the Crooked River and from there, they could go up to the headwaters or even the odd one could readily have accessed Lake Brunner. Perhaps some environmental change led some of the fish to return down the Crooked, up the outlet creek and back into Poerua. It’s a theory, and given rainbows can tolerate higher water temperatures than browns, it could have happened.
We are very keen to have the names of those who have seen these fish and, if possible, photographic evidence. So it’s a bit of a mystery, a conundrum of sorts, and we’d value any responses from those who think they’ve experienced a rainbow in Lakes Brunner or Poerua. Share your info, and hopefully, send a photo to ivanmurraywilson@gmail. com. I’ll certainly share it through this paper and with F&G.
“Somewhere ……..
