blueether Posted December 4, 2011 Report Share Posted December 4, 2011 Went out last night to the localish stream to see what I could see, and to get a few young smelt and or inanga to fill the gap in the mid to upper water column in the 4 ft tank. First walked down to where it empties in to the Waipa and spotted some very large carp, maybe 2 ft long and a large jack brown in the slow backwater. Found some smelt and captured only 4, man these guys can move fast. Walked up stream again to see what else I could see and sitting in the tail of the first pool I spotted a large torrent fish, and after a failed attempt to net it managed to capture a good 150mm torrie. Man they can grow large. Spent a bit more time searching around in the tail of a few holes and caught a few baby torries as well. Most went back, as did the big one, but kept a couple. Man small torrent fish are so cute. Brought them all home and placed in their respective tanks to acclimatise. Then within 5 min of the smelt being released into the big tank two were dead, thanks to Mr giant kokopu who took a fancy to the new live food Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nativelover Posted December 4, 2011 Report Share Posted December 4, 2011 he must be faster than the smelt then :slfg: how big were they his belly must be huge now. and great fish :thup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted December 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2011 he must be faster than the smelt then :slfg: how big were they his belly must be huge now. and great fish :thup: He didn't eat them straight away, I didn't see who ate them in the end but the two koura would have cleaned them up if noone else ate them. I think he did have a good go though, you can see he/she is quite fat in the pic in the other thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted December 4, 2011 Report Share Posted December 4, 2011 Love the first photo! Luminous Have you discovered the trick with inanga and smelt is to turn the net rim horizontal and come up underneath them? They are still fast, but they don't seem to see the net that way. I read an old paper about diet of giant kokopu based on stomach contents. One had eaten a 20cm kokopu I can't remember the size of the eater, but it was probably 40-50cm, and a 20cm kokopu will not fold into a neat package for easy stomach storage like a nice bendy little smelt. :spop: Sounds like a great trip, I have a craving to go spotlighting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey Posted December 5, 2011 Report Share Posted December 5, 2011 I'm sure your Kokopu and Koura are very happy with the feed you provided them Are the remaining two Smelt still alive in the tank? Also... I agree with Stella... I haven't been spotlighting for a while... and it is getting warmer. So I should get out there and peer into the water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted December 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2011 Yep the other two survived Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.