Jyvaskyla's lakes were frozen over and there was 30cm of snow on top of the ice.
Thankfully, our rivers and lakes are running clear and at good levels for fishing this weekend.
As I flew into Momona I was keen to see what the Taieri was like and it looked good.
The river bed could be seen in all but the deepest water. At this time of year sea trout start running into the Taieri regardless of the height of the water but when it is low and clear it is easier to locate them and also it takes them longer to run through the lower river as they tend to negotiate the shallows under the cover of darkness.
On the subject of running fish, those keen to catch a salmon should be out on the water during the rest of April.
The rivers to catch salmon are the Clutha and the Waitaki but I have heard of at least one being caught on the Taieri recently. There is a good chance of a salmon in the harbour, too, as they have been caught consistently during the past few weeks.
As far as trout fishing goes, I predictably go for the Mataura which is at a perfect level and with the water cooling off there should be hatches of mayflies most days.
The smaller lowland streams are very low and consequently will cool off considerably overnight but should start to fish later in the morning as the temperature rises.
Having spent a lot of time sitting on a plane or sitting waiting to get on a plane over the last week or so I have had plenty of opportunity to read about fishing. I scrounged some back copies of some British fishing magazines from my brother and even went to the extreme lengths of buying a couple.
There were lots of interesting articles on tackle and flies but none of them managed to persuade me to exchange my current prejudices for new ones. I do try new flies and experiment with variations of old favourites but I think it is a mistake to fill up fly boxes with random patterns for no particular reason other than that someone somewhere caught a fish on them.
One article waxed lyrical about a particular pattern and a fish that was caught on it only to learn late in the piece that it was the only fish that the author had caught on it. At the opposite extreme there was an article that gave the dressing for a salmon fly which had accounted for over 100 salmon last season on river beat.
If I was fishing fly for salmon I could possibly be persuaded to give that one a try. However, it will be the tried and tested in action again this weekend.
