Fishing Reports

Although Lake Rerewhakaaitu is still very high, making shoreline access severely restricted, anglers are still catching fish on a regular basis. School Arm is one spot on the lake where fish have been coming in close to the shore, especially after dark or cruising close to the many reed beds that frequent the shore line of this lake during the day.

Mainly feeding on damsels and dragonflies, these fish are also taking bullies, smelt and nymphs of various types, day and night. Casting along the reed beds or over the large areas of submerged weed beds has been successful as has been harling, both over the weed beds and along the channels in the lake bed. Most fish are in very good condition at this time of the year and have been found to be full of mayfly, dragonfly and damsel nymphs as well as a few bullies.

Lake Okaro is looking a lot better than it has for many years, due to the huge amount of work done on cleaning it up by removing sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs from the surrounding land. This has improved the fishing and with the lack of any real summer heat this lake continues to fish well from a drifting boat as well as from the shore.

Casting a fast sinking line and olive woolly bugger or killwell number one, from a drifting boat in the bay to the right of the boat ramp, when looking out into the lake, has been reasonably successful. Some very good conditioned fish have been caught off the stream mouth delta as well. There are lots of bullies in the shallows so fishing after dark with a killer pattern should take fish coming into feed. This lake suits a float tube or similar as it is not a large lake and for the more adventurous there is a walk way circumnavigating the lake, giving access to a few more spots, especially for those that spin fish.

Those fishing the Hamurana mouth have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of fish most days. Lake Rotorua’s water temperature stubbornly refuses to rise above the 19 to 20 degree mark and with the fickle wind moving the cold water plume around a large area, fish have been holding well outside the casting range of most anglers. Brown trout are turning up in increasing numbers and can usually be found in slightly cooler water than the rainbows enjoy.

The larger numbers of browns seem to be holding in water around one metre deep and well down the bay to the left of the stream mouth. Small woolly bugger and dorothy patterns are still taking fish as are nymph imitations, including the Giaconda. The lake temperature dropped a little today (Wednesday) but there are fish moving through the mouth, judging by the large number of fish holding up at the springs. The wind can be a challenge at times as it has been coming on strong around 8.30 to 9 am, thankfully it dies away most days at around 8 pm making for more enjoyable casting, if not actually catching.

The upper Waiteti Stream is crystal clear and not holding large numbers of fish at the moment. Those that are there, being mostly large browns, take cover at the slightest movement from the bank so extreme care is required when stalking these fish. The lower reaches seem to be holding a lot more fish and fishing around midday seems to be fairly productive.

While most anglers are content with fishing in and around the mouth, the more adventurous have fished out into the lake with much better results. One brown in excess of 5.1 kg was taken from there last Saturday night and several have been hooked and lost since. The pool under the bridge on the Ngongotaha Road has fished well for the past week or so, with large browns and rainbows being taken. Some of the rainbows have been in excess of four kilos.

There seems to have been quite a build-up of silt outside the mouth of the Ngongotaha over the past couple of weeks, which is very soft to walk on in places. A bit more rain should see a small influx of browns into this river system again. Rainbow numbers should start to climb slowly as we get into February and increase as we get into March so one could expect to see larger rainbows to start appearing over the next few weeks.

Although there aren't as many fish holding off the mouth of the Awahou Stream as one would expect, a few local anglers have been picking up a few fish every night. Today (Thursday) the wind swung around to the south-east during the morning and pushed the cold water plume to the right.