I fished the Awakino.
River was running reasonably low, water was very clear. After a week of fine weather and Northerly quarter winds was almost warm enough to wet wade, but not quite
Arrived early about 6:30 and pulled a fiesty little 1 1/2 lb rainbow from the first run on about the 5th cast. Good start I thought. By about 9 had 5 fish to the bank and dropped another 3. Biggest just under 3 lb. rest between the 1 1/2 to 2 lb range.
I have a favourite run in this river, that on the right cast gives an awesome drift and usually holds 3 to 4 fish. Just below this is a large pool. I normally give it a miss and head straight up the run. On the pool was about 7 little ducklings and crusing down a bit from them was a nice fish. So I thought I'd try a drift through the pool with a dry and dropper to see if I coud snag the trout as it was picking off the surface. Getting ready to cast and next thing mum and dad duck turn up and all hell breaks loose squalking and carrying on as they do. So I flagged and starting walking up to the run. As I did so the parents would try and get me to follow them by flying low up the run and landing on the water. As I got close they'd fly a bit further up and land again. These ducks are farking up the run I thought so I doubled back towards the ducklings trying to play the parents at there own game they eventually came back and I ducked into the bush and entered the river 100 m or so up the river and thinking I'd out foxed them. I stripped off some line and walked out into the run next thing I know the farkin ducks are squalking and landing right in the honey hole where you'd expect tp pickup a good fish. So here I am standing in the river in the middle of know where swearing my head off at a couple of ducks. The joys of spring fishing. Anyway fished the run for a 1 lber.
Up shot of the day ended up with 8 fish for the day dropped or missed about 8 or 9. Fly of the day was my new favourite nymph a Quazi Modo, Cadillac Phsant tail and phesant tail didn't really to the business, hare and copper produced a couple and I got 3 on the dry fly indicator when I was fishing a hedged bet. Smaller was defintely better with 18 doing most of the business on the nmyph's
Left the river at 4 stoked and knackered.
Fish are in primo knick and fiesty as. Rivers in great shape too ..... was quite interersting to see the changes in a few short months since I was last there and how the fish were in places they weren't last season.
Cheers.
Toby