Spring weather has prevailed over the last couple of weeks - not the dappled sunshine and blossoms nodding in the soft breeze that are conjured up in the mind when such an expression is used but the strong winds and heavy showers of reality.
Most flowing waters are higher than normal and many are too high for any fishing at all - and the forecast for the holiday weekend is hardly encouraging.
A safe bet for fishing will be any still water that is open for fishing. Two popular dams that used to open at Labour Weekend are not available, as they now open on November 1.
However, there are others that are open: Hamiltons Dam and Hores Pond on the Maniototo are well worth fishing, along with several dams in the Lawrence area.
Another option is the large lakes of Central Otago if you are heading that way for the break. There are also lots of smaller waters well worth fishing, the most obvious being Butchers Dam close to Alexandra, plus Conroys in that area, too. There are plenty of options offered by small still waters in the Queenstown area as well.
Last weekend, Murray Smart and I decided to fish a small still water we had fished only once before but seemed a good option given the state of the rivers. As we drove to the Strath Taieri early on Sunday morning, the air temperature was only 3degC and there was fresh snow on the Rock and Pillars. When we reached the Nenthorn Dam, a clear blue sky looked promising. We last fished this dam at Christmas and saw several good rainbows rising but were unable to get any of them to take, so we gave up and fished the Taieri instead.
This time, the Taieri was far too high. Things on the Nenthorn Dam were not too promising for the first hour and we only saw one fish rise. We moved to the murky lower dam and Murray immediately hooked and lost a fish. After a while, odd fish began to rise, there were some midge hatching and the odd small sedge skittering about on the surface and lots of water boatmen coming to the surface, which gave us even more hope.
As the water was murky, we fished with a large fly, a damsel fly nymph, and we picked up the odd fish throughout the afternoon. Some were in spawning colours but a couple were maiden fish in very good condition. It had maggots from a dead sheep in its stomach, along with a small perch.
