May 2016 Fishing Report

With the closing of the lowland waters at the end of April, our attentions are focused on the inflowing rivers into Lakes Wanaka and Hawea. 

River and lake levels become increasingly important as the best fishing is to be found at the river mouths, with lures such as Grey Ghosts or smelt imitations catch well, along with bully imitations working on the mudflats.

Up the rivers, the brown trout are staring to move up to spawn, but it seems to be late this year, and they are still interested in well presented nymphs if they are not paired up yet. There are some very nice rainbows to be found following the browns up (we landed a 6lb and 7.7lb fish within 5 minutes of each other last week).

Looking ahead, the rainbows will start to congregate around the river mouths from July onwards, and there will be some browns moving out of the rivers from spawning and can be targeted around the lake margins if levels are low.

The canals around Twizel and Tekapo are great places to target over winter, with big strong fish around, and I find they are more active to respond to flies / lures during the cold winter months.

Southern Wild on Helwick Street has plenty of good flies in stock, along with waders and boots to help manage the chilly conditions.