Fishing Report

With the end of April, rivers around most of NZ have closed. However, in the Southern Lakes, we are lucky enough to have our season extend to the end of May, as well as a couple of lower river sections and lakes open throughout the winter.

During May, the river fishing in our backcountry rivers tends to focus on targeting rainbows, with the mouths offering some exciting fishing if the levels are low. There will still be some browns congregating around the mouths and moving up the rivers during early May as well, and these fish are very catchable.

As the browns pair up they become a bit challenging to catch. If you find solitary fish, they are the ones to target.

There can be some nice mayfly hatches in the afternoons if the river you are fishing has enough food to support a decent hatch.

Flies to use around the mouths tend to be bully imitations, although on the warmer afternoons blowflies have been working. On very calm glassy mornings there are still some midge around, and a 16 black gnat can get results if you are careful.

If you are fishing smaller rivers, make sure you avoid wading through the spawning beds (‘redds’) of the browns - you can see these as clear patches of gravel that have been turned over, and are typically devoid of and week or algae growth like the surrounding gravel.

Looking back over the last season, while it has not been easy fishing, overall we have had good fishing, with one notable feature being the unusually large number of “big” fish landed (7lb plus).

Below is a lovely Otago brown caught at the end of April this season. It rose to a beautifully presented Dads Favourite by my client David. Fish like this don’t get fooled easily, and we had spent some time practicing the cast further down the river away from the fish before making the presentation. A 16’ 4.5x leader was used with a reach cast, and to his credit, David didn’t crumble under pressure, and straightened the leader perfectly. He also managed to wait and time the strike with the obvious good result. I’m not sure I could have done as well myself!

Enjoy the Autumn fishing.

With the weather settling down nicely, Autumn fishing through April looks to be on track. 

Browns are starting to pair up, with territorial behaviour noticed over the last couple of weeks. They should start to move towards the mouths of the larger rivers over the next few weeks. This has already started happening, with very few browns being found cruising the lake edges where we usually go to target them.

We found large numbers of browns around a river mouth in a howling Nor’West earlier this week. They were patrolling the mud flats and weed beds, and small bully imitations “ambushing” fish accounted for over a dozen nice fish.

In the rivers there are still a few fish taking dries (blowflies and cicadas) but they will come to their senses soon. With the cooler weather there might be mayfly hatches starting up in the afternoons.

April is a great time of year to head down South and look at the Mataura fishery, along with the Waikaia, Oreti etc. Make sure your flybox contains plenty of Mayflys, both dry, nymph and emerger. Tom at the Mossburn pub offers good value food and accommodation.

Here’s a nicely conditioned brown from April last year.