Fishing News index> March 2008

Southland Fish and Game Fishing News March 08

There have been some good freshening flows down all of Southland’s rivers over the past couple of weeks and the next month or so promises to be fairly normal as far as rain is concerned. There will be some good fishing during April.

Salmon angling in the region finished at the end of March. There were some good catches in January and February but then things went fairly quiet while the rivers were pretty low.  As is to be expected salmon fishing in Southland remains a by product of the excellent trout fishing we have. All serious salmon anglers head for the big East Coast rivers where catching a salmon is more likely.

Trout fishing is what Southland is good at, especially brown trout fishing. Despite the dry conditions most of the main rivers remained at reasonable levels. The Oreti, Waikaia and Mataura were in particularly good order, even though some smaller streams such as the Aparima got too low for good fishing. 

The freshes mid March cleaned out the excessive algal growths in some of the smaller streams and gave them a boost of flows making angling conditions ideal.

April is when the lower Mataura comes into its own and headwater streams such as the Oreti and Waikaia become much harder to fish. Trout in these places start to think about adding more trout to the world so they become a bit distracted and skittish. For some reason those in the lower reaches carry on feeding happily right through into the early part of May providing excellent fishing in the latter part of the season.  The weather doesn’t have to be fine and calm for good fishing to occur. In fact some of the roughest souwesterlies produce some of the best mayfly hatches on the lower reaches of the Mataura.  So don’t be put off if the weather is bad. Just rug up and get out there – you may be duck shooting in worse weather soon. 
 

Maurice Rodway
Manager.

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