As I write this, rivers and streams are looking good for the weekend and the weather forecast holds nothing ominous. Mind you, I thought the same last week and it all fell apart at the last moment. We can but hope.
My first choice for this weekend would be the Mataura followed by the Pomahaka. The upper Taieri also looks good but if the weather is fine the tussock lakes are a good option, too.
As it happens I will be fishing none of these, as I will be in Lawrence giving fly-fishing instruction. You will find me just past the arch of Gabriel's Gully on the left. The free instruction is part of the Lawrence Summer Arts Festival so if you want a bit of casting instruction or a few tips on catching trout with a fly, pop in between 10am and 4pm this Saturday or Sunday.
Last weekend the options for Murray Smart and me were very few as our favourite streams were all running high, so the Maniototo dams were the choice again. We had a quick look at Matthias Dam and saw a few fish rise and noted that for later in the day as Blakely's was our first choice.
Things looked good from the start with little wind and a few fish rising. I targeted an area where there was a fish rising regularly. I covered it several times without success then another rose to my left and took on the second cast but I only had contact for a few seconds before it dropped off.
Seeing another rise further along I moved to that area and waited for it to rise again. As soon as it did I cast the fly close to it, in this case using a damsel fly nymph, and it rushed at it and swirled. I struck without making contact and quickly cast again and the same thing happened, but on the third attempt I made solid contact. After a few minutes and a couple of heart-stopping moments as it tried to bury itself in a weedbed, it came to the net a fat rainbow of just over 2kg. It was full of corixa.
In the meantime Murray was doing the same thing with a fish of the same size except his was full of damsel fly nymphs.
Murray called me over to where he was fishing as there were several good fish working the edge of a long line of weed. The first fish that took was to the corixa on the dropper which smashed on the take. The next one took the damsel fly nymph on the point and luckily headed for open water to tire itself out before I pulled it up on to the weed and slipped the net under it, a 3kg rainbow. We moved to Matthias, Murray got a 2kg brown straight off and that was it for the day.
