The recent run of warm, dry weather has ensured ideal river conditions for fishing over the last week.
Rivers are now very low which means there is less water in which trout can hide, swinging the odds slightly in the angler's favour.
There is rain on the horizon but probably not enough to change conditions dramatically.
The run of warm weather has kick-started the cicada fishing and any warm day for the next few weeks should ensure some cicadas on the water.
On rivers with a mayfly population, fine calm mornings almost guarantee a fall of mayfly spinners which trout soon latch on to.
In warm weather there are lots of terrestrial insects on the move, especially beetles, and a green beetle imitation or a coch-y-bondhu are good patterns to try.
Of course, there are also cicadas and although these are usually associated with the tussock lakes any stream that has even a small area of tussock nearby will have some drop in.
Any beetle or cicada pattern is a good fly to use as an exploring pattern, even if there are no regular rises.
Another option in rivers that are low is to fish a small nymph in the ripples.
Sometimes the water will look a bit thin to hold fish, but they just need enough water to cover them. Casting well ahead pays off as they can be very spooky when in shallow water.
I have been out a couple of times in the last week, on one occasion fishing a small tributary of the Taieri using a size 12 deer hair sedge as a cicada imitation which produced a couple of fish and a couple of misses.
The other outing was on the upper Taieri on a scorching day. There was no cloud cover and little wind, which is ideal.
There was an odd rise on the walk downstream before starting to fish back to the car.
As often happens, the rise ceased for the first half hour on the way back.
Then a few spinners appeared on the water. Eventually a snout came up and sipped one down.
By this time there were quite a few spinner drifting down and although the trout rose twice more, it was not rising very often.
I had a diving beetle pattern on and as the fish was not fixated on the spinners.
It worked, the point of the line pulled away and I was attached to a good trout which exploded out of the water.
It fought hard and deep, eventually weighing 2.5kg when it came to the net.
As I returned the fish another rose just below me in water I had already fished.
I quickly got the fly back in the water, dropping it short to wait for it to rise again, immediately the line drew away and I was in to my second fish, which turned out to be slightly smaller than the first.
In the afternoon a northerly wind came up and the action petered out.
