Fish galore!

Coming off the back of Easter Weekend and with some very nice weather in the Canterbury region, the fishing has been damn good from what I have seen and heard.

Freshwater

With some nice, settled weather in our High Country, particularly over Sunday and Monday of the Easter break, we saw a lot of anglers heading out and spending some time at our High Country Lakes. Lakes Coleridge and Selfe definitely saw their fair share of anglers but it appears that the effort was rewarded.

In earlier reports I have mentioned the quality of the salmon in Coleridge recently and that hasn’t changed. There have been some ripper fish taken out of the lake, mostly by either trolling with bibbed lures or with lead lines, or from the shore with small ticers or wobbling spoons. When targeting the salmon, typically shinier or brighter coloured lures will get the results but don’t be afraid to try darker colours or a darker contrast on a duller overcast day or around the change of light.

Just as I thought a rather tough salmon season was coming to an end, the Waimak goes and produces some fish at the final hour! From all accounts there has been a pulse of fish entering the river and we have heard salmon being caught right through the Waimak system now. The size is still a concern, so let's hope next year sees a return of some bigger models!

Saltwater

I took advantage of the good weather myself and headed out off the peninsula looking for some tasty bottom-dwelling critters and the day couldn’t have been better. The ocean was settling nicely after a bit of a southerly earlier in the weekend and the ‘puka were on the chew!

The shallow water ‘puka fishery provides great opportunities to snare these tasty fish on jigs, with the Shimano Wingfalls being the winners lately.

We only used lures, and the Shimano Wingfall jigs were the winner, but we also had success with Lucanus, knife jigs and softbaits. We are very lucky to have a shallow water hapuku fishery where we can target these fish with jigging techniques making catching a feed such fun. As we creep closer to winter we can expect some more settled days off our coast that will allow more of this type of fishing. We haven’t had any reports yet, but it was now last year that bluefin tuna turned up and were caught out of Kaikoura, so we are all ears to the ground to see what happens this year – here’s hoping for a repeat of (or better than) last year!

The kahawai fishery just keeps performing and the fish around the Wamiak have been in much better condition than pre-Christmas. Great fun and super accessible at the Waimak, too.

We have a very active team of keen anglers in our Fishing Department, so please fire any questions our way and we will point you in the right direction to keep you on the fish. Please check out our Facebook page for more info on what we are up to in Canterbury. https://www.facebook.com/ballingershf.co.nz

Simon McMillan
Christchurch Hunting and Fishing New Zealand
75 Clarence Street, Addington, Christchurch
03 3430212
https://www.facebook.com/ballingershf.co.nz
www.huntingandfishing.co.nz