River levels key this weekend
MIDWEEK rain has raised river levels, which could impact on the fishing at the weekend. However there is not much more rain forecast so levels could drop to fishable levels by tomorrow or Monday.
It would be a shame not to fish on a holiday weekend, so I will be looking hard for somewhere to fish. Going by the regional council websites, the best bets look to be the Pomahaka, the Mataura and the Taieri. The Waipahi could be worth look, too. It has risen but it was so low to start with it is still below normal level. Fishing it will depend on the colour of the water. The Clutha, too, is worth fishing, even when it is on the high side, as it is usually clear.
The water off gravelly beaches is the best bet as the fish move in to the side as the river rises. It may well rise, as there was more than 200mm of rain in the alps this week. It all depends on how much water is held back in the hydro dams.
It is getting darker more quickly in the evenings now and the main benefit is being able to fish an evening rise without staying too late on the water. As the weather cools, mayfly hatches will peter out in the evenings but sedges are not affected as much and even a few sedges will bring trout to the surface. So if you live close to a stream, a couple of hours in the evening can be well spent on the banks.
It was a perfect day on the Mataura at the weekend, warming up to a calm, sunny day. To start there were no rises but there were trout right up in the shallow ripples feeding on nymphs and they took the trusty hares ear nymph readily. I was fishing a No 12 weighted nymph on the point and an unweighted No 14 on the dropper. All the fish I caught were on the point, which is surprising, as the dropper reaches the fish first when fishing upstream.
Late in the morning a few a spinners began to fall but I had several fish turn short of the fly and the couple that did take dropped off.
After lunch we moved and immediately found fish rising. There were odd duns on the water but more spinners, so that is what I tried. There were several rises but only one fish landed. I tried an emerger, just in case, but that did not work at all. Luckily, the rise stopped so I went back to the nymph, this time in the deeper water where the fish had been rising earlier, and it worked. Even though the water was clear I spotted very few fish. Further upstream, Murray was having a great afternoon, landing quite a lot in a long ripply run, most at the top, in the shallow water. Hopefully, we get another go at them this weekend.