Weekly Fishing Report for North Canterbury 27-02-2020

Hello and welcome to the North Canterbury region fishing report, a North West front will be moving over the country on Friday. 

This is expected to move up the South Island on Friday.  It looks as if this will bring heavy rain to the Canterbury headwaters. 

However, it is reasonably short-lived.  There will be a clearance from the south on Saturday becoming fine.  

Above Right: An Ashley river tagged trout.

Sunday looks like great weather too.

For the main alpine rivers, there will probably be some dirty water coming down on Saturday after the rain in the headwaters. 

Salmon anglers will still get an opportunity on Friday and possibly Saturday morning before this fresh comes down. 

There is of course the competition on the Rakaia River this weekend, so river space will be at a premium. 

The Waimakariri river is a good alternative for those not in the competition. 

Some good reports of catches have been occurring in the tidal reaches of the lower Waimakariri this week. 

Once again check the flows as the river is likely to come down dirty on Saturday.

Apart from the possibility of some heavy rain in the headwaters fishing conditions look good this weekend. 

There could be a bit of southerly drizzle or showers Saturday morning around the lower plains. 

This is expected to clear in the afternoon. 

Headwater and back country streams will probably be dirty on Saturday but will clear quickly to be fishable on Sunday.

Foot hill streams will not be affected by the forecast rain. 

These streams are now very low, and fish have moved into the deeper pools. 

Fish have been salvaged from the lower Ashley and released at the Ashley Gorge. 

Some of these have been tagged to see what the survival and long-term movements of these fish are. 

If you catch one of these fish with a tag, please contact F&G with the tag number and the location of where you caught the fish. 

Most of the fish tagged and released into the Ashley gorge will be over the 400mm maximum size limit, so please release them again and just send the information on to us. 

This will be important information as to how successful our salvage operations are.

It will be another great weekend for high country lakes. 

The lakes will get plenty of wave action on Friday which will stir the fish into action. 

Saturday and Sunday will be calm, fine days in the high country. 

Perfect conditions for stalking around the edges spotting trout. 

Boating conditions will be great too on Coleridge or Sumner.

Fish & Game started its back-country drift dive this week.  So far, the numbers of fish have been low compared to counts in previous years. 

The fish are large this year due to the beech mast, but the low numbers suggest that the floods before Christmas have influenced the overall numbers. 

These back-country trout are highly sought after. 

Anglers need to be mindful when playing these fish, that they have probably been caught before if not a few times this season. 

Play them efficiently and release them as soon as possible.

North Canterbury CEO talks salmon with Malcolm Bell

Malcolm Bell of the Complete Angler has posted a new podcast with CEO Rasmus Gabrielsson talking about salmon.

You can view it here.

Tight lines

Tony Hawker

North Canterbury Fish & Game Council