The glorious weather of the last week or so has brought all running waters to a good fishable level, except (there is always an exception) for the Clutha, which has dropped a lot but still has a way to go. And just as the rivers settle, the cicadas start on the tussock lakes to add to the surfeit of riches, making the decision of where to fish that much harder.
I think my choices would be the Mataura, the Pomahaka and the Taieri. The whole of the Taieri is now fishable, the only foreseeable problem being the water temperature getting too high in the middle of the day. The same applies to the upper part of the Pomahaka. Both these rivers have great willow grub fishing in the prevailing weather conditions.
Some of the smaller streams can give good fishing when low. Again, the only problem is the heat. I like to fish the Waipahi when it is very low and have had my best fishing in such conditions, and the same is true of the Waiwera. All the likely spots have to be fished carefully. These tend to be obvious, but the fish are very spooky if it is bright.
If you head to the tussock lakes and there are few cicadas on the water, fish are often easier to catch. If the fish are not rising, do not persist with a cicada imitation, but use a corixa or damsel fly nymph. My preference of fly when trout are rising to cicadas is a coch y bondhu - the takes tend to be more positive and fewer fish are missed or lost.
In streams - unless fish are rising - the best fly is a small nymph, and even if they are rising, the nymph works well. If it is calm early in the day or late in the evening, a fall of spinners can be expected which offers some of the best rapid-fire fish to endless rising fish.
Last weekend, on my way back from Lawrence, I stopped to have a look at the Tokomairiro and enjoyed a couple of hours of difficult but enjoyable fishing. With a very low flow, the fish were cruising, as there was no current bringing them food, especially on the flats. I saw a lot of fish rising but not many were easily accessible.
They appeared to be rising to willow grub but it was hard to tell. I used a size 14 hare's ear nymph and managed to get a few takes and landed three despite one of them wrapping the leader round a trailing branch. Luckily, it behaved rather well and lay still while I untangled it before slipping the net under it, a nice fat fish of just under a kilo. I looked off a bridge on the way home and saw several other fish so the Tokomairiro is well worth fishing if you do not mind hooking the odd bramble and tree as well as trout.
