The season got away to a good start with good catches in December, January and February but fell away in March
494 fish caught on the Southside which was up on the 2013-2014 season when only 443 caught
This may be a sign of a good December-January 2015-2016.

Fish returning to the hatchery have been quote slow with the total to date 11-5-15 386 fish made up of 234 females and 152 males.
By having such a big majority of males has reduced out egg production by a third so we have reduced our programme to 350,000 green eggs.

The drought has been very trying to all staff at the hatchery as I have never seen McKinnons Creek this low in the 10 years we have been operating.
We had to release one raceway to utilise more water for the south race which worked very well and so we still have 35,000 very nice smolt for release in June.

The South Rangitata Irrigation spawning race is now up and running, we put 22 females and 10 males on the 5th May which related to at least 3 redds by the 8th May. If we can get this spawning race to work it will be a win win win for the Rangitata salmon fishery as all smolt will go straight to the mouth as they will not have to face any irrigation intakes

Regards Bill Whipp