This weekend is a time that many anglers start the season and for those who do the prospects are good with most waters at a good fishable level and the weather forecast to be fine.
For those who prefer rivers the Mataura is at its best level so far this season, and the Pomahaka is looking good too. All the small rain-fed waters to the south will be worth fishing. If you head to Central Otago the upper Clutha will be worth a cast in the evening for trout feeding on sedge.
The edges of the lakes will be populated with trout feeding on bullies and in the evening or early morning they will be feeding on midge pupae as they swim to the surface to hatch out.
I mentioned in a recent column that mayflies can be expected to hatch in the afternoon and so it was when I took my grandson fishing on the Taieri. He is a bit young to fly-fish so we were spinning, or at least he was as I was busy taking out tangles and rescuing lures from snags as well as keeping well back to avoid being hooked myself, although not far enough back on one occasion.
About 2.30pm mayflies began to hatch and did so for about an hour. Despite the fly there were no rises where we were below Outram bridge but there were a few trout sipping duns from the surface above the bridge so another visit with the fly rod should be worthwhile.
Last weekend, Murray Smart and I fished the Maniototo. We started at Mathias Dam on a fine calm morning, the sort of day anglers would pick to go fishing. We covered all the likely spots and tried water boatman damselfly nymphs and bloodworms with only one fish hooked and lost between us before lunch.
We moved to Hamilton’s Dam to have our lunch and studied the water as we ate our sandwiches. We saw a couple of rises straightaway and saw good fish cruising the shoreline.
The flies were soon in the water, but the odd rises that we saw were mainly out of range, although two were silly enough to come close enough to reach. If they were now on the feed, we reasoned that there could well be some action back at Mathias, so down the hill we went.
Our reasoning was misguided — there was just as much inaction as before, although Murray did have some takes and I dropped a fish. The algae in the dam is growing rapidly due to the warm weather and much of the dam will be unfishable fairly soon.
I had a brief visit to the Shag River midweek. The river has changed a lot due to the big flood in July. As always, some new fishy spots have replaced old ones that have disappeared.
I saw enough fish to keep me occupied but they were hard to catch but persistence paid off and a nice fish came to the net eventually.
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