Lake Rotoiti is one of the best of the Rotorua lakes — deep, scenic and joined to Lake Rotorua by the famous Ohau Channel, where fish stack and the fishing can be exceptional. It grows strong rainbows and browns, fished by trolling and jigging the drop-offs, working the channel mouth and stream mouths, and fly fishing the cold-water inflows. A fine all-round Bay of Plenty lake fished much like Tarawera and Rotorua.
Lake Rotoiti lies just east of Rotorua in the geothermal Bay of Plenty, a deep, irregular caldera lake of bush-fringed bays and hot-water shores, joined to Lake Rotorua by the Ohau Channel. Cooler and deeper than its neighbour, it grows strong rainbows and browns that gather at the Ohau Channel mouth and the cold-water inflows. (Not to be confused with the Nelson Lakes Lake Rotoiti at the head of the Buller.)
Wading: Deep cold lake, geothermal areas, sudden weather — boat/shore
Peer-reviewed diet analysis found smelt supply nearly four-fifths of adult trout diet here by weight, alongside koura, bullies and koaro — chironomids, small caddis and terrestrial insects matter mainly to juvenile fish under 200mm. This is a baitfish lake, not an insect-hatch one, for anything worth targeting.
- Lake
- Volcanic
- Stillwater
- River mouth