Most of the bank along New Zealand’s rivers is private farmland. These pages find the places where a public road meets the water and public land runs along the bank, so you can fish without asking anyone.
Find a place to fish
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How we choose these places
A public road reaches the water. A road bridge, checked against LINZ’s legal road records (the topographic map also shows some private roads), an unformed legal road, or a road within 60 m of a lake.
The bank near it is public. A marginal strip, conservation land, a national park or a reserve beside at least a quarter of the water within 1 km, so you have somewhere to walk and fish.
There’s water in it in summer. MfE’s modelled low flow for a typical dry summer is at least 0.5 m³/s: enough water to fish. “Stream” is up to 3 m³/s, “river” above.
Healthiest water first. Insect life (MCI, the food trout live on), typical visibility and what the catchment above is mostly, from MfE’s national water quality records for 2016–2020, graded with the government’s NPS-FM bands. Modelled for every river; measured where a monitoring site is within 500 m, and the place says so. Lakes aren’t graded. Big braided and glacier-fed rivers grade lower naturally (shifting gravel and silty snowmelt keep insect life down); low nitrate and a mountain catchment tell that apart from farming.
It’s from national records, not a visit. A stream lined with willows can look dry from the air, a bridge can be closed, and a model can be wrong for one stream. If a place isn’t what it should be, tell us.
Perch, tench and rudd in lowland lakes and ponds: easy fishing and a good start for children.
Before your first trip
Get a licence. Trout, salmon, perch and tench are sports fish, and you need a Fish & Game licence to fish for them, and to follow the rules of the region you fish: seasons, limits and methods. Fish & Game licences and rules ↗. In the Taupō district, DOC runs the fishery and sells its own licence: Taupō licences ↗.
Check, Clean, Dry. Didymo and other freshwater pests travel on wet gear and can survive for months on it. Do this every time you move between waterways. How, from MPI ↗
Know whose bank it is. There is no strip of public land along every river (the “Queen’s chain” is patchy): we found public land beside the water along about 40% of named rivers. Elsewhere the bank is private, and you need the landowner’s permission. A marginal strip or an unformed legal road lets you walk to and along the water without asking. The Outdoor Access Code on fishing ↗
Don’t cross what you can’t see the bottom of. Rivers rise fast after rain in the hills, and braided rivers are dangerous to cross. Fish from the bank you arrived on.
No live river levels. A place can be in flood or dirty after rain; check the regional council’s river flows on LAWA before you drive.
No fishing reports. We show where you can legally reach the water and how healthy it is (MfE, 2016–2020), not what’s biting this week.
Not every river or lake. Rivers with less than about 0.5 m³/s in a dry summer, small lakes and the Chatham Islands are left out.
Rules aren’t restated here. Seasons, limits and methods are Fish & Game’s (DOC’s at Taupō).
13,240 named rivers and 605 lakes measured. Places to start: a public road meets the water (bridges checked against LINZ legal road records), public land is beside at least a quarter of the water within 1 km, and MfE’s modelled summer low flow is at least 0.5 m³/s (“stream” up to 3, “river” above). Rivers measured on a 100 m grid so braided rivers count once; lengths run about 10% short of official figures because the grid cuts across bends. “Public land beside the water” means a marginal strip, conservation land, a national park or a reserve within 25 m of the river (nature reserves and wildlife areas left out); a road “reaches” the water within 15 m. River names are LINZ’s 2018 pilot and not always official. Figures from 2026-10-05. Rivers and lakes: LINZ NZ River Name Lines and Polygons (Pilot) and NZ Lake Polygons (Topo 1:50k), CC BY 4.0. Roads: LINZ NZ Road Centrelines (Topo 1:50k) and Primary Parcels, CC BY 4.0. Summer low flow: MfE River flows, CC BY 3.0 NZ. Public land: LINZ Protected Areas, CC BY 4.0. Unformed legal roads: Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa, CC BY 3.0 NZ.
