I saw a shag scoff a legal sized snapper in the viaduct once. Grotty birds full of warms and not much good to anyone if you can't eat the bloody things anyway. A neck amputation would have probably done that shag no harm.

Yep, you sure do Boz, they're more dangerous than worms.

Should have wrung its neck still learning................ Less of them bleedin things around the better....

For it to so aggressiviley attack this fish the poor thing may have been starving with starving chicks (the background music starts about now) Throwing risk a side to do everything it could to save itself and family...

Great call Finatic and thank you for idea of duck shooting on the Waitahanui. Excellent cover and easy stalking I reckon!!.

apparently a survey done in 1945! of the stomach contentsof about 2500 shags found some18500 trout. No BS!
You should feel ashamed. I would have paid your fine or done your time.
My local pond/lake was fishing very well until a pair of the arrived.
Then everything stopped.
ptj

Mudfish is right... bear in mind how many young one spawning from one hen produces... work it out,.... if they alll lived fishing would be crap! There is a natural selection at work and survival of the fittest has always been what has kept our trout stocks among the healthiest in the world.

Rusky wrote: Saw a shag gulf down a good size Pink MaoMao the other day of around 35-38cm, and did it in a matter of say 5 seconds!!!!!!   Gob smacked i was.

It is cool watching a big Shag try and eat a large eel. Saw a fight a few years back and at first I was not sure who was winning, the eel wrapped itself around the shag and was pushing it under the water. After around 3-4 minutes the shag managed to swallow the entire eel. Then it weakly climbed onto the bank and rested for half a hour.

I wonder how long it would take the eel to stop moving once swallowed.

I made a post about these birds last month. One not based on personal experience but now I have one.
Based on the Lunar Calendar I visited Lake Pupuke around midday yesterday and left frustrated by the amount of shag activity (they were catching and I wasn't).
I returned in the evening and was troubled only by myopic rowers.  After  about 45 troutless mins and growing darkness I was about to leave for a steak, when suddenly a strike.
As I reacted the fish leaped, about 35meters out. To my amazement it was followed in a nano second by a shag from nowhere (I hadn't seen one 'til then). Within seconds it made several attacks on poor trout which was now threatened on two fronts. My hook or the shags?
I treated the fish roughly, retrieving fast without regard to tackle, pulling it left then right - as if this would match the incredible  speed and agility  of the bird.  For whatever reason the shag dived  away. Uncertain of another attack I continued my flustered and aggressive 'play'.
Trout was 15 - 20metres out when, in the deepening gloom and from the corner of my eye, I spied a rapidly approaching manned craft bearing down on the line between me and trout.
I shouted a warning (no bell or foghorn)  and the rower was quick witted  enough to assess the situation to veer  away  in a nick of time -  most of them  aren't.
So I brought my catch to the shore. Unfortunately the drama had been too much for me and without a net I attempted too haul the damn thing carelessly up a two and half foot bank pausinig briefly to assess it. Without a struggle it dropped back into the lake, stunned and seemingly almost lifeless, and lay on its side half submerged in a pile of weed.
This was a very good sized fish for the lake and though I usually release them it was more than enough for a 2+2 family and I wanted it (but not enough to fall in the lake).
A relatively recent hip replacement creates restraints but I manage on hands and knees to position myself to just reach it. Its arse end stuck out
from the weed but its belly was just out of reach. I grabbed its slippery tail and in a moment Nemo was awake and gone.
I was pissed, but if ever a fish deserved its freedom...
Dead true.