Success after giving up — almost

THE rain last weekend raised the levels of most rivers and streams around the region but luckily the fine days since have seen them drop back to fishable levels. Some rain is forecast for this weekend but probably not enough and not too early to spoil the chances of catching a fish or two.

On the subject of water levels, I was in Canterbury last weekend and drove over several streams, or rather streambeds that had no water in them. That made me think about that font of all knowledge of things hydrological, Nick Smith. He told us this week that we only use 2% of New Zealand’s water resources.

Now I would not doubt his word, but I would ask why we are exploiting the water in regions that have the least.

Why do we not take it from areas that hold a lot of the other 98% that is just lying there doing nothing? The water would then flow freely again in Canterbury streams.

But I digress. I was in Canterbury to meet up with my son Chris to go fishing.

There was plenty of water in the air on Saturday and it was rather cool, but when there is fishing to be done trivial matters such as cold and rain are of no importance. I had heard about Opuha dam and that it held a good number of fish and was keen to try it out.

Sue and I arrived on Friday afternoon and checked in to the small cottage we had rented. Chris joined us later in the day. We planned the fishing with the precision of a military manoeuvre — well, the better ones. We decided to drive to the dam and find a suitable place to fish.

The next day, that is exactly what we did, pulling into the first car park we found at the east end of the dam. We were surprised at how low the water was but quickly realised most of the water was somewhere else. The level was down at least 5m with vast expanses of silt and mud. We immediately found trout dashing into the shallows feeding on something or other.

Because of the silt, I tried a bloodworm in tandem with a water boatman. The fish followed them but would not take, over and over again.

While waiting for fish to cruise by, I fished blind over the deeper water and hooked a good fish which unfortunately dropped off.

We did the only sensible thing and gave up, but not entirely. We moved to where a tributary ran into the dam and immediately saw fish dashing around — three to be exact.

The nearest, a brown of just under 2kg, took the water boatman and was soon in the net. The others had spooked but wave action had coloured up the water around the creek mouth, so I fished a damsel fly nymph blind and was rewarded by a rainbow almost as big as the brown.

That seemed to be a suitable time to head off for a cup of tea.