High Country Salmon

It was said that the late Richard Logan, freshwater aquaculture pioneer and mad-keen angler, could think like a fish. That piscine sense helped him establish the freshwater salmon farming industry in the Mackenzie region's hydro canals.

After many years of experimentation and tinkering, in 2000 he established High Country Salmon with his wife Margaret on the turquoise waters of the Wairepo Arm (part of the bigger Lake Ruataniwha). Richard and Margaret built the salmon pens and sewed the nets by hand while living onsite in a campervan that doubled as the staff tearoom. Starting with one pen of 30,000 salmon babies, there are now 20 pens, and not a silky sliver of the salmon goes offshore. High Country Salmon is still a family affair, with Margaret now joined by daughter Jeni and a grandkid or two for good intergenerational measure.

It is possible to feed the fish at High Country Salmon as well as feed on fish at a floating shop and café with glacier-to-plate salmon spoils. With a processing department onsite, the supply chain is winningly short: slices of the morning's haul can be in one's poke bowl that same day.

2602 Twizel-Ōmārama Highway (just south of Twizel), SH8.

0800 400 385, highcountrsalmon.co.nz