Fishing Reports index > August 2007

North Canterbury Fishing Report

Report North Canterbury  by Martin Langlands
 
August has seen many bright sunny days and even an element of spring in the air; with more than the odd trout having been seen feeding away in smaller streams it is easy to get excited about trout fishing possibilities available right now and at the full opening in October. I have heard of some decent catches from the lower Rakaia River and Lagoon and as the whitebait appear this should get better. Lure fishing, spin fishing and fly fishing are common methods with favoured flies being White Rabbits, Grey Ghost, Parsons Glory as traditional options in sizes 8-4 . If traditional patterns interest you try to read or search out information by R.K.Bragg and John Morton two of Canterbury’s greatest geniuses in this field.  Baitfish imitations are often over looked these days, however there are many new developments yet to come , first we should study what species of bait fish do we have in Canterbury, most importantly looking at Whitebait-Smelt-Bullies and Torrent fish; there are many resources to study these fish.

www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/freshwater/fishatlas/fishFind  offers very comprehensive information and images relating to these baitfish, of most interest for this area are retropinna retropinna {Smelt-cucumber fish} and Family Galaxiidae {whitebait} .By gaining a better understanding of these you may well improve the imitations and ultimately  enjoy learning about freshwater nature and this wonderful ecosystem flowing at our door steps.

If the rivers remain in good condition the lower reaches of the Waiau -Hurunui -Ashley and Rakaia rivers are well worth a try for sea run trout as are all other South Island lower reaches maybe think west coast? definitely read regulations.

By far the best upstream nymphing river at this time of year is the Hurunui with many access options as far up as the confluence of the North and South Branches. Some very nice 4-6 pound Browns have been taken by anglers i know in the past weeks {mid August}. Take care to clean your gear as Didymo is present in this river , it has been suggested that if you use Felt Soled shoes that freezing them is an effective method of killing the Didymo cells ie put your shoes in a plastic bag and place in freezer for 24 hours, take care not to get mixed up with the ice cream!. The more I read the more apparent that felt soled wading shoes are a major vector for didymo!.

In such waters a 6-7 weight fly rod with floating line is best and rig up with larger indicator and a long distance to the Nymphs below remember tungsten beads have a very good sink rate, important in these Larger Rivers and learning about the appropriate indicator size and colour is an art form and this is a great time of year  to experiment with this.

 For those anglers getting keen to tie some new summer patterns I have seen some very interesting new fly tying materials in Mikes fishing shop www.mikesfishing.com also this site supplies some very interesting forums on trout fly patterns! well worth a look. Each report I aim to give different web sites from the region that have informative content so I hope to get around to you all.!!! Excited about current and new season prospects and as always i welcome any feed back from you! Here is an image of my Koaro {family Galaxiidae} imitations taken today! 

cheers

Martin Langlands martinyy@xtra.co.nz

Martin Langlands  is an independent fishing guide; his reports are not officially representative of Fish & Game NZ

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