All looks good for closing weekend

SO far, things look promising for the last weekend of the season, with all waters fishable. The Pomahaka is extremely cold and so, too, is the upper Taieri, which is not a good thing, but everywhere else seems fine. Catching some nice trout that are taking mayflies on the Mataura is the place to be.

As I mentioned last week I am in Wanaka this week, running a flyfishing course and taking the chance to get out in the evenings to fish for trout rising to sedge in the Clutha.

I stopped off at Butchers Dam on the way up. It was a fine afternoon, very promising, but little happened. I saw a couple of fish rise and caught a couple of small ones.

The first evening on the Clutha was better than Butchers. It was a fine warm evening with a few sedges around to start a lot of mayfly spinners, which were taken by mainly small trout while it was still light. As the light faded there were increasing splashy rises to sedge. I managed to hook and land one or two.

Then the action dropped off for a while but around 7.30pm they came back on, not many rises but they took the artificial sedge readily.

There was a mixture of browns and rainbows and they were in good condition. They went off again when the wind got up, just after eight, so I called it a day. It was probably the best evening sedge fishing I have had in a few years.