Water, water everywhere but few fish likely to be caught
IN case you haven’t noticed, it has been raining this week — in fact, we had about a two months’ worth of rain in about five days.
As you might have guessed this will have a significant effect on the fishing this weekend. The only positive is that it will not be far to travel to water. Whether there will be any fish there is another story.
The only river that will certainly be fishable is the upper Clutha as it runs out of a lake and will be clear. In fact, some of the streams running into the lake could be clear enough to fish as most of the rain that has fallen has been well to the east of the Main Divide.
Other waters where fish may be caught are the small dams of the Maniototo, as they have little inflow and stay relatively clear. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is not too good, so only really keen anglers will be out.
Even worm fishers will find it difficult to find fish in coloured waters just given the amount of extra water to fish.
The prospects last weekend were almost as dire. The weather forecast was not good, with thunder, hail and snow predicted. Most rivers were high and dirty too. But the dams were fishable.
As I drove through Strath Taieri there were flood warning signs on the road, which was not promising even though the water had receded.
When I got to the first dam it was warm and sunny with just a few fluffy clouds around, the water was calm and there were a couple of fish rising. I started off with the trusty damsel fly nymph, but it was a while before I hooked and landed a respectable rainbow trout of
1kg. Then nothing — not even a rise — so I tried another dam. There were a few fish rising but mostly well out of range. There was one not too far from the shore, so I moved as close as possible to it and covered the area and after a few casts hooked it. It took off in usual wild fashion, but I got it under control and was bringing it closer when it made a dive for the weed bed in front of me and was gone.
Eventually, I spotted another fish, hooked it and guided it safely to the net, a slightly bigger fish than the first one of the day. Then the weather began deteriorate, the wind rising and rain and hail falling. I decided to try somewhere else, which turned out to be even windier and there was even snow falling on the hills and the temperature had plummeted.
A sensible person would have packed up, but luckily I am not that sensible. I spotted a fish very close to me, but it had not seen me. It hit the damsel fly nymph and soon the best fish of the day was in the net. Then it was time to be sensible.