I am writing this early in the morning.
The sun has just peeped over the hills and there is not a cloud in the sky, or a breath of wind - perfect for fishing. I hope to get out a bit later in the day. Conditions around the South are just better than they have been for weeks. Even the Clutha, which has run high most of the summer, is at a fishable level. All other Otago waters are looking good and my pick of them would be the Taieri and the Pomahaka, closely followed by Clutha and the tussock lakes.
The Waitaki system looks equally impressive. Although the main river is a little high at the moment, over the weekend it could drop. Salmon fishers will be hoping for a little colour in the water to increase their chances of a fish. The Ahuriri, in particular, is in good order for fishing the nymph in ripples and a dry beetle imitation on flat water.
To the south, the Mataura, too, is looking good. It is very clear, good for sight fishing, although fishing blind in the ripples usually produces the most fish. On the way to the Mataura or on the way back, the Waiwera is a nice little stream to fish and it looked good when I crossed it on Sunday.
Last Sunday I ran a fly fishing course for the Southland Fly Fishing Club on the Mataura. I fished the Saturday evening on the Mataura with Chris McDonald and Les Ladbroke from the club. The water looked good, although it was a little windy. We split up and fished a favourite ripple and caught a couple on the nymph followed by another on the next ripple.
Then things went quiet. The sun set and the wind dropped and there were a few mayflies on the water and even fewer rises. I covered an area around a rise and hooked a fish on the emerger but it dropped off after a while, as did a couple of others. Chris and Les did not fare any better. We hoped things would be better the next day.
We started with casting practice above Wyndham Bridge, all 16 participants along the gravel beach, casting into gin-clear water, in bright sunshine. Two of the class caught fish, which defies logic, especially to those of us that like to think of fly fishing for trout as a sophisticated and skilful pastime. Perhaps the secret is to pretend that you are practising casting and not trying to catch fish at all.
We split up into groups for the afternoon and a few fish were caught and the instructors managed to demonstrate catching some trout, in keeping with fly fishing lore.
To add to the philosophy of not catching fish if you do not go fishing, you will only catch them if the fly is in the water.
