Reel Life April 2024 - North Canterbury

With the season coming to an end for the majority of our rivers and lakes which will re-open on the 1^st of October, there is still some great winter fishing opportunities here in North Canterbury for anglers to explore.

Especially some of our high country lakes as pictured above, which are open all year round so be sure to check your regulations booklet or give the North Canterbury Fish & Game Office a call for more information.

This season was the first year of the Designated Waters system and from the anglers we have surveyed in our region we have had a lot of positive feedback.

Anglers are happy with their backcountry experience and the fishing has improved for them.

Which is the results we are after and its showing that the system is working.

We will continue to survey anglers out on these rivers which are designated so we get a better understanding of angler usage from residents and non-residents.

Remember to hand in your sea-run salmon card before the 7^th of May, whether you have caught a fish or not.

This information is very important to us because we need to be able to calculate how many fish have been harvested by anglers.

You can either scan the QR Code on the back of your licence and put the information required onto our website or you can drop it off into the North Canterbury Fish & Game Office.

Also on the 7^th of May is our Fishing Regulations Review which there will be a public meeting held at the North Canterbury Fish & Game Office.

The next Reel Life issue will be in August so be sure to check it out if you do manage to get out fishing over the winter period, then send us some photos of your success whether you catch a fish or not, it’s all about the experience of being on the river or lake.

We are underway with our salmon monitoring program on the Rakaia and Waimakariri Rivers, we have currently done two counts on each river system and we will do another three more counts on each river once we have completed our monitoring program we will collate all of the data write up a report which will be available for the public later in the year.