May 2019 Fishing Report

May 02, 2019

MAY 2019 FISHING REPORT

Proudly brought to you by Craig Smith from Hatch Fishing

With April going, so does many options for river fishing in Southland, Eastern Otago, and Canterbury. Locally, many high country waters around Wanaka are still open until the end of this month. Shorter daylight hours and lower sun angle makes for harder fish spotting conditions.

Browns are pairing up and moving into the river systems to spawn. This can be very frustrating as there may be 20 large fish in a pool chasing each other around, but mostly they have no interest in feeding. However, if you can find a solitary fish they sometimes take a well presented nymph, which gets anglers all keen for several hours more casting to non feeding fish.

It is worth looking at some of the more remote fisheries as very large rainbows follow the browns up as they spawn to feed on eggs. We have landed rainbows up to 9.5lb with fish around 6lb not uncommon, and in fantastic condition.

River mouths can also be hot spots if the flows and lake levels are low. Rainbows will be lurking around as the temperature cools, and it’s a good tactic if you cannot spot fish to fish a lure around the drop off.

Looking further North, the Twizel and Tekapo canals will be staring to fish well as the weather cools down. The larger browns will be moving around with spawning behaviour, and the rainbows also get a bit more mobile.

Below is a nice winter brown from Ohau canal.

Craig Smith

Registered professional guide NZPFGA
FFF certified casting instructor
Ph +6434438446
M 0276469419
info@hatchfishing.co.nz

www.hatchfishing.co.nz

www.wanakaflyfishingacademy.co.nz