Fishing News index> September 2007

Look downstream for some great fishing

Early season fishing in the Wellington Fish & Game Region has been a real lottery over the past few seasons; last year copious rainfall made conditions all but impossible for fly-fishing and severely curtailed the activities of anglers using spinning gear. The year before was a very different story; the weather was sufficiently warm and settled to induce some prodigious Mayfly hatches as early as September and dry-fly aficionados were well rewarded. Given that we can never be sure what the weather will throw our way over spring, the key to being successful early in the season is being able to adapt to the prevailing conditions.

Currently, the fishing throughout the Wellington Fish & Game Region can only be described as slow. Although river conditions have allowed fly-fishers the chance to have a crack at the major winter fisheries like the Hutt, Ruamahanga, Manawatu and Rangitikei; getting in touch with the trout has been difficult. Generic nymph patterns like the pheasant-tail and hare & copper have been the weapon of choice for most anglers, but have yet to start producing fish consistently.

With the whitebait season underway the attention of those anglers “in the know” is shifting towards the lower reaches of rivers like the Ruamahanga, Hutt, Waikanae, Otaki and Ohau which have traditionally produced their fair share of solid sea-run brown trout at this time of the year. These fish move into estuarine waters at this time to feed on the shoals of migrating whitebait and smelt and you need to time your efforts to coincide with the periods when the “bait” is running. Generally whitebait don’t start to move into freshwater in any numbers until a few days after the first major flood of the spring, and the intensity of the runs fluctuates with subsequent variation in the river flows; high flows stimulating a fresh influx of whitebait just as soon as the river begins to clear following the rain.

The first major rapid above the tidal zone is a great place to intercept sea-run trout, as the increased water velocity tends to slow the whitebait and smelt on their push upstream. Try targeting such areas at dusk or early in the evening using big wet-fly patterns like Matukas, rabbit lures, killer style lures and woolly buggers. If the trout are herding bait-fish on the surface then a floating fly-line will suffice, otherwise it’s a case of using a floating or sinking line as appropriate to get your fly near the bottom.

At present the whitebait fishing in the Wairarapa and along the Kapiti Coast has been slow and the whitebaiters are still awaiting that first decent dose of spring rain to get the bait moving. When that rain comes, so will the whitebait and the big sea-run trout with the burnished silver sides can be expected to come follow them. Last season saw some cracking sea-run trout over 2.5 kilos caught locally, and there’s every reason to expect more of them over the next few weeks.

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