Fishing News index> May 2008

Southland Fish and Game Fishing News May 08

For most of the first half of May we had mild calm weather and reports of trout fishing were reasonably positive. The lower Mataura provided some nice fish to dry fly anglers although the hatches were not consistent.

The Upukerora is a popular late season fishery. It has lots of migrating brown trout in it and these can sometimes be tempted to take a nymph or a dry fly. However most are not interested in feeding and are easily frightened. Fishing for them usually results in all the fish in the pool swimming around chasing each other. However, occasionally a trout can be taken and a walk up the Upukerora on a warm autumn day is pretty nice anyway.  Sometimes there is a good mayfly hatch in the mid afternoon and this will get the trout interested in feeding rather than just jostling for dominance in the contest for mates to spawn with.  Some of the other lake tributaries such as the Iris Burn are worth a look if you can get to them, but trout feeding activity is fairly short lived, although it can be frantic while it lasts. A clean gear certificate is needed for this river and others that flow through the National Park into the Lakes. All of these rivers are closed from June till November inclusive.

While the region’s estuaries and the lower reaches of the main rivers are open through the winter there is not much fishing until about mid August when the whitebait start to come in from the sea.

A cold front that brought snow and quite a lot of rain – between 20 and 30mm in most places  - around the 22nd of May put paid to the nice autumn weather and the good river conditions so it is now time to look at getting some more trout flies tied and the gear cleaned up and stored away for a few months at least.
 
 
Maurice Rodway
Manager.

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