Reel Life November 2024 - Wellington

Ben Ellison with a beautiful silver Lake Wairarapa brownie

Season Continues To Heat Up

It’s been an incredible start to the season in the lower North Island with the weather continuing to shine on anglers and some superb trout being caught.

We’ve had several freshes over the past month but nothing major and most weekends have seen great fishing conditions.

The rivers have plenty of spring flow but they’ve been clean and clear, providing plenty of opportunities for fly and spin anglers alike.

Where you encounter deeper pools, or in the larger rivers, soft baits are proving deadly with good whitebait runs pushing through both west and east coast waterways.

A white or silver body soft bait with a dark back has been particularly effective.

These lures are working well in Lake Wairarapa at the moment as the whitebait move up through the Ruamahanga system.

After a period of settled weather and light winds the water around the Tauherenikau delta has been crystal clear and both trout and perch can been sight fished in the shallows, making for awesome angling action.

We’ve also had good reports of chunky sea-run browns being caught on the Kapiti Coast rivers – the stretch downstream of SH1 on the Otaki is fishing very well.

With warmer temperatures in the early-20s starting to prevail, we can expect the action to heat up further as the bugs burst back into life after a dormant period over the winter and early spring months.

Brown beetles are starting to appear in the evenings, so dry fly action on still warm nights is certainly on the cards.

Now’s the time to get into the hot fishing if you haven’t been out on the water yet – grab your licence now!