Lower North Lowdown Weekly Fishing Report - 2 January 2025

Summer Angling in Full Swing   

Happy New Year! Hopefully you've kicked off 2025 with some awesome summer angling.

If you're lucky enough to be on leave, you'll appreciate there's nothing quite like taking your time when fishing rather than racing against the clock, squeezing it in after work or around other commitments.

Pictured above - Lily Kinahan with a superbly conditioned lower Ruamahanga River sea-run brown (Photo: George McCall). 

That makes the summer break the perfect opportunity to introduce friends or family to the pursuit.

Need some tips and ideas on how to get a mate started? We've got you covered!

Click here to check out our YouTube channel which includes a range of introductory videos through to advanced angling tips.

Get your friends and family schooled up, grab them a licence, and get out on the water together.     

We've got abridged reports over the Christmas and New Year period, but all the information including links to live weather and river flows is provided below to help you plan you next angling adventure.

We'll be back to normal reports in mid January. Hope to see you on the water. 

Get In to The Action! 

Jump online and get your licence the easy way - it only takes a minute.

Click the image above to get started. 

 

Here's the outlook for the weekend:

 

Hutt Valley

 

Hunting & Fishing Photo Comp - Win $300 To Spend in Store

Brookes McCall with a good Waiohione River brown caught recently (Photo: Gorge McCall).

Send in your favourite fishing photos from this season and you could be in to win a $300 voucher to spend in store at Wairarapa Hunting & Fishing.

We won't blow your secret spot, just include the name of the angler(s), photographer's details, and general location in the Wellington-Taranaki Fish & Game region.

  

Click here to submit your entry.             

You can send us as many fishing photos as you like. By submitting images to enter the competition you acknowledge that Wellington Fish & Game can publish and use the photos for publicity material.

Entries must be in by 5pm Tuesday, April 2, 2025. The winner will be announced in the Lower North Lowdown report on Thursday, April 4, 2025.

Video Of The Week - Perseverence Pays Off

This short clip shows American angling sensation April Vokey sticking it out to final hook and land a tough New Zealand brown trout. 

Click the screenshot above to watch.  

Summer Holiday Reading

If you missed it in the mail at the start of this season, you can click on the cover of Fish & Game NZ magazine above to download a copy.

There you'll also find issues going all the way back to 2016. So, there's heaps of summer fishing and hunting reading just waiting for you.      

Handy 'How-To' Guides

The team at Wellington-Taranaki Fish & Game have produced some handy ‘how-to’ guides to help you get the most out of your investment in a licence and catch more fish.

These cover tips and techniques that will help you get started, take your fishing to the next level, or trouble-shoot some common issues anglers encounter on the water.

Select from the links below to download the right resource for you:

- SPIN FISHING BASICS

- ADVANCED SPIN FISHING

- READING THE WATER

For any anglers visiting or new to the Wellington Fish & Game region, and have had the Hutt River on their bucket list, we've designed a dedicated brochure to help you be successful on this exceptional but challenging piece of water.

Although the fishery holds high numbers of trout, the Hutt isn't an easy river to fish. However, the rewards are exceptional with large hard fighting browns the prize.

- HOW TO FISH THE HUTT RIVER