Heavy rain set to dampen this weekend’s fishing prospects

The prospects for angling this weekend are not good for anywhere west of the Clutha River, with heavy rain over much of the area from the Clutha to Western Southland.

There are flood warnings in several catchments. The Mataura is high and rising rapidly as I write, as are many of the small streams popular at this time of year. The Waipahi in particular is of interest to those of us who are entered for the 139th Waipahi Medal competition on Saturday.

With 36mm of rain in the headwaters it is rising rapidly, which may affect the running of the event. I have fished the Waipahi Gold Medal for 41 years and from memory it has only been postponed twice in that time. On one of those occasions fishing conditions were worse on the postponement day.

For those intending to fish to the east of the Clutha, unless there is heavy rainfall, most waters look good.

The Taieri is a little high but clear enough to fish. The Maniototo section of the Taieri can fish well when the water is high, as there are many oxbows and back waters into which the fish retreat.

If there is a hatch of mayflies, most of the river is fishable, as fish will rise to them, making locating fish much easier. The stillwaters also provide good fishing when rivers are poor.

This week Rutherford’s and Blakely’s dams opened and Murray Smart and I visited them. It is always interesting to see what they are like, and in particular how much weed there is. The less weed the easier they are to fish and the less chance of losing fish as the fish bury themselves in it.

There were no worries with the weed on the fine morning that we fished Rutherford’s. There was a gentle breeze and even the odd fish rising.

As soon as I tackled up and began fishing, I saw a fish rise about 50 metres away so adopting my usual tactic, I moved along and covered the area around the rise, and after about half a dozen casts I had the fish on.

Even though there was little weed on the surface there was obviously some down below, as on the trout’s first jump the line was festooned with weed. Luckily it dropped off and the fish came safely to the net.

They took the water boatman on the dropper and I had a damsel fly nymph on the point, which being much heavier than the boatman, helps get it down.

By lunch time Murray and I had caught several fish so we moved to Blakely’s. Murray got off to a good start with a 2.5kg fish in the first few minutes. The wind began to pick up and fish activity slowed. We had caught a few at the start then nothing, so we decided it was time to call an end to a good day’s fishing.