For instance, the lower Taieri was starting to look good, but as I write, it is still at a reasonable height but very dirty.
Goodness knows where all the colour has come from. It could have come from the Kyeburn, which I see had a short sharp rise in level, and it must have taken three days to get to Outram.
The good thing is the upper Taieri is looking good at the moment. The lower Clutha is also an option. We are lucky in Otago with the range of waters that we have to fish, and when the rivers are out, lakes and dams are an option.
I ventured to the Maniototo dams midweek on a beautiful sunny day. Ideal for fishing Blakely’s dam.
But the shine was taken out of it when I discovered I had forgotten my fishing vest. I had put on my waders and went to pick it up, and I had that sinking feeling when I could not see it and the long drive home flashed through my mind.
Then I thought, all I need are a few flies and some tippet material, so I scratched through the box that contains spare reels, sunscreen, first aid kit, headlamp, spare sunglasses, several odd socks and the current fishing regulations.
There, bringing back the shine to the day, was a box of flies I won in a raffle at the Waipahi Gold medal weigh-in a couple of weeks ago. Just as welcome was a spool of tippet material.
As I walked towards the water, I pondered on forgetting my vest.
Was senility setting in? No, I thought, as I remembered doing the same thing about 15 years ago.
It did cross my mind that I may have forgotten the vest on other occasions but had forgotten them. But I quickly banished such thoughts from my mind and I set about choosing a fly from a box full of patterns that were foreign to me.
At first glance I was not inspired, but there was a thin green one that a trout with less than perfect eyesight might mistake for a damselfly nymph.
So, I tied it on and within a few minutes had hooked and lost a fish in the weeds, then landed a fine fish of 3kg.
Paul Savage and Bruce McGavin turned up and I scrounged a proper damselfly nymph from Bruce. That enabled me to fish with more confidence when I moved to Rutherfords dam, where I lost a good fish on the nymph, before going to Mathias dam and catching my first rainbow from it for the season.
The day made me wonder why I needed a vest and all the clutter it carries. The only answer I came up with was that it felt weird without it.
