April 2017 Fishing Report

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.