Fishing Report

August 2017 Fishing Report

Craig Smith 

July 2017 Fishing Report

Proudly brought to you by Craig Smith from Hatch Fishing

We are over the shortest day, and the fish seem to know it, with a bit more activity evident.

I have seen quite a few post spawning browns moving on the lake margins, which is encouraging. With the low lake levels a long cast is not required, but the ones we were targeting were rather wary, so make sure you don’t make your presentation too heavy handed.

There are still some nice rainbows to be found around the incoming rivers, and there should be a few more move in as the spring approaches.

The canals around Tekapo and Twizel are popular this time of year, and a good destination to target some of the large trout that lurk around the salmon farms. During the winter, the rainbows move away from the salmon nets as they try and find water to spawn in over the months ahead. Below is a nice rainbow from last weekend caught in the Pukaki canal. Southern Wild has an extensive amount of gear to target these big fish.

Keep warm and enjoy the fishing.

Craig Smith

April 2017 Fishing Report

Proudly brought to you by Craig Smith from Hatch 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.

Good luck and tight lines,

March 2017 Fishing Report

Proudly brought to you by Craig Smith from Hatch Fishing

The big news is that the weather seems to be settling down, with light winds and clear medium to low flows in most backcountry rivers.

This has allowed fish to move up from the lakes and take up residence in stable water that had previously been subjected to huge flow changes.

Trout are actively feeding on cicadas in the backcountry, and willow grubs and other terrestrials such as blowflies in the lowland rivers.

There is also some bully fishing on the mudflats around the lake edges, along with cicada fishing over drop offs in tree lined areas around the southern lakes.

The high country lakes are all fishing well with tussock cicada patterns.

Fish numbers being caught are reasonable, with some larger ones coming to the net most days.

Looking ahead towards the end of March, we should start to see some “smelting” fish around the river mouths, but I won't be surprised if  they run late this year as just about everything else has been a few weeks overdue with the wet cold start to the summer.

Here’s a nice brown from this week taken with a cicada pattern.

Good luck and tight lines,

December 2016 Fishing Report

Proudly brought to you by Craig Smith from Hatch Fishing

September Fishing Report

August Fishing Report