The cool spring and early summer will have delayed the emergence a little but two or three hot days should see the first cicadas on the water.
I have found the best days to fish are when there is just a trickle of cicadas falling on the water rather than when the water is carpeted with them.
This gives the fly a better chance of being picked up because it is not competing with so many naturals.
Calm days help too as the cicadas do not get blown right across the water and are concentrated around the shoreline, bringing the fish within casting range.
At times, trout will slash at cicada imitations without taking hold of them, making fishing frustrating.
One thing I have tried is using a coch-y-bondhu, which is a beetle imitation that the fish take more positively.
I remember once fishing a cochy and landing all nine trout that took it following on from a bout of landing very few that came to a cicada imitation.
Rivers have heated up a lot this week with some reaching 24°C which slows up trout.
Bigger rivers are not affected so badly, but smaller streams can rise and fall 8°C or more in 24 hours.
That means fish will be more active in the morning then again around dusk.
On Wednesday, which was very hot, I fished the Pomahaka.
There were trout rising to the fall of the spinner when I first started. This was before the sun was high in the sky and the air felt quite cool, as did the water. The first couple of fish that I covered with my spinner imitation stopped rising immediately.
They were rising in open flat water and I suspect flash from the leader was putting them down.
I moved to a shady stretch of water and caught a fish straight off. The rise petered out and fish were then rising under the willows, suggesting they were on willow grub, but maybe not as they took a cdc emerger.
Late in the morning I found several fish cruising short beats in shallow water right under the willows.
These had to be on willow grub and this diagnosis produced some more fish.
As the day heated up, the fishing slowed up and few fish were feeding so it was time to call it a day.
The Mataura on Sunday was completely different. The morning was cool and, although it warmed a little, there was not enough heat to affect the trout.
The action was a little slow in the morning with the odd fish coming to a nymph in the ripples.
After lunch I fished a deep ripple and caught fish, then moving upstream into the shallower water the fishing really took off.
Twice I hooked fish while extending my line to fish further out. Then, as usual, it came to an end and it was time to go home.
