Autumn fishing is here.

Daylight saving time has changed back (thank goodness), the leaves are changing colour and there is one month left for the lowland rivers (the ones that run to the sea)these close on the last day of April and the high country rivers close at the end of May.

There is some great fishing from now until the end of the season with some good Mayfly action.

The Pommy had a very big and quite localised rain event about 2 weeks ago that created a very large flood event (it also hit the Waikaia but not as bad) which has seen debris left to very high levels up the banks and has certainly pushed fish back downstream and knocked them about. They will be moving up again.

The Oreti and Aparima have seen fresh fish moving up in last week and spawning runs are getting underway. It is no longer possible to target salmon in these systems due to the seasonal license restrictions in place from F&G. Even on poor light days blinding thru runs and riffles should produce a result or two - forget the aquarium pools unless you want to hit them after dark.

The Greenstone is now free slather (no booking system) again for all (if you have the correct licensing)until next season and is fishing well. The Caples is also fishing well and both are holding good numbers of fish and more Brownies are showing up in the systems. Even getting trout coming for cicadas still!

If you want to catch lots of fish, hitting the Mataura and working the riffles and waiting for the afternoon mayfly hatch is the way forward.

Quinnet salmon have been gathering at the heads of the lakes for their runs and the deltas have been productive.

Certainly now the days are shorter more gentlemanly fishing hours are available and there is some very productive fishing during the shorter light hours - particualry mid afternoon when the hatch is on!

Tight Lines,

Simon

Update from Fly fishing New Zealand

I am just about to post a vid blog but in the mean time:

The lower 1/3rd of the South Isalnd has been fishing well.

The Cicada season on the west coast is at an end and in-land has been reltively poor due to the regular cold snaps we have been getting over summer killing off the grub.

Sea runs have started appearing in some of our better know sea running rivers and also chinnook salmon are showing up. The Clutha River belkow Roxburgh is one example of this where a solid amount of large salmon have been caught.

The latest cold snap produced teh coldest day in QT in March since 1991 and also a solid flush thru most of the river systems. This should only help induce more fish to run up these systems and we are lookinglike getting some excellent mid to late season fishing.

Tight Lines,

Simon

Going on a New Zealand Fly Fishing Safari

Another week in the Southern region

After the last storm that brought snow to low levels throughout Southland and into Otago and even Canterbury as expected the rivers flows remained low due to the cold keeping the snow from melting. We had one of those rare blue bird days with a light southerly yesterday - the southern fly fishers wet dream! Being a Sunday many folks were out to enjoy some fishing before or after voting and I am sure many had great fishing. We certainly did with most fishing taking nymphs but the odd fish free rising from time to time and a quick switch to a black gnat proving a wise change.

We did see something a little off putting yesterday. On a river that has a series of beats and anglers access signs right beside a main road but not a single vehicle at any of them we decide to stop and use one of the beats for our mornings fishing. We rigged and walked over to the river and dropped about 100m below the vehicle to start walking up and very shortly encountered a vehicle on the far bank that doesn't have public road access and is all farm land. I walked up to the one figure I could see and he informed me that he had driven down that side and dropped 4 fisherman off (so there was 5 fisherman in total) spread out over the next 4 fishing beats upstream. I said ok mate we are out of here and headed off to another area and had a successful day. Now I have no problem with other parties of fishermen, its parr for the course in rivers with roads beside them, however trying to be a sneaky and driving down the other side of the river thru farm land dropping of so many other fisherman when there are public anglers access signs from the other side is not really fair in my book. We were lucky that we realized what the situation was very early in our day and got out of dodge city but it could easily have been different and our day would have been wrecked. These jokers could have used two road public accesses and put 2 parties of two fisherman together, left the vehicle at one of the accesses and a sign at the other rather than spreading them out over 4 beats with no indication of them even being there from the public accesses. I am pretty sure that most other anglers would have been very annoyed to see this kind of conduct going on and it should not be condoned in any way.

If there are public accesses, use them. Leave a sign in your vehicle saying which way you went, UPSTREAM or DOWNSTREAM and if you want to be really nice write the time down you started off on the sign as well.

Improving weather in The Southern NZ regions

Since the 1st week and a half of the fishing season the weather has improved (for the time being) down here in the lower third of the South Island. This has created a vast improvement in water clarity and all the rivers and streams are clean at present.

I have visited quite a lot of waters in the last week thru West Otago and Northern and Western Southland - all have been clear and fishing well although flows are quite large still (be careful on your crossings). The fishing has been good and we have been able to sight and catch many fish using standard nymphing techniques. A few trout have sucumbed to the dry fly as well.

As normal at this time of year some of those little hidden gems are the place to be as they are holding fish while they carry good early season water flows.

The trout themselves are a mixed bag with some very well conditioned trout and some trout needing to work hard over the next 2 months to put their condition back on.

There is still plenty of snow to melt off the mountains so we will see some high, dislcoloured water soon enough again - remember you can still find clean water usually and there is always the option to fish a streamer fly.

In 10 days most of the South Island New Zealand back country rivers open.......

Tight Lines

Winter Update

The Clutha in Otago, New Zealand is fly fishing well at present downstream from the Hawea confluence with plenty of rainbow trout either pre or post spawing so some are in good nick and other not so. When you combine the power of the mighty Clutha and even with small post spawning rainbows you've got a battle on. A quick trip the other day allowed us some great sight fishing opportunities to fish in riffles and between 2 fishers 8 fish to the bank and a few more lost. Due to the high fish numbers we decide to keep a couple of fish each for dinner and yummy they were. Biggest fish of the day went around 5.5lbs and smallest around 2 lbs