Fishing News index> November 2007

Southland Fish and Game Fishing News November 2007

After a cold October with a lot of rain and high water for most of the time the rivers are settling down now, although the main rivers are likely to get freshes that put them out for a few days. Usually there is good fishing on the tail of these freshes - first for spin angling then fly anglers as the waters come clean again.

The river of choice appears to be the lower Waiau where there are plenty of nice rainbows to be caught - not too big at around 1 kg or so but in good order and in a lovely river. The Waiau has had much of its didymo flushed out and has also had a lot of clean lake water down it too so is in great condition.

The Mararoa has been high and has at least been partly responsible for the high flows in the lower Waiau. It’s so clean of didymo that Meridian have had to give up on some trials they were planning to do to test new screens they have because there has been no didymo drifting in the water column. It is starting to come back a bit in the middle reaches of the Mararoa but at the moment the river is pretty clear.

The upper Waiau is high and difficult hard to fish. Fly anglers will do better when the flows drop from their current rates of around 500 cumecs to closer to 300. There will have to be a lessening of the active westerly fronts that are drenching Fiordland before that happens though. 

The upper reaches of the Aparima and Oreti are in beautiful condition at the moment but there will be other anglers at the places you want to go to. It pays to be patient and share the water with others if you can. Fish and Game have new “gone upstream/gone downstream” signs for anglers to put on their cars, and in the upper Oreti there is a beat system operating to help resolve the crowding. Please be sure you comply with this. You will find instructions at the relevant parking areas.

Whitebaiting continues to be slow in Southland so estuary fishing may be a bit slow too. However we have heard of a magnificent 5kg trout caught in the lower Mataura so there are some beauties about and maybe fishing generally will improve as Christmas gets closer.

Fish and Game and the Southland Fly Fishing Club held a Women’s Fly Fishing Weekend on the 17-18 November  as part of the “Become an Outdoor Woman” programme.  A small number of participants learnt some of the secrets of this wonderful sport and it is hoped that they will go on to enjoy the fruits of their efforts on the rivers of the region over the summer.

Maurice Rodway
Manager.

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