First few days of the new season have kicked off and river conditions are still reasonably average, due to the rain falling reasonably consistently in the ranges.

Caught and released a couple of nice fish in the middle reaches of the tributaries which I imagine are late spawners looking at them. They hit a modified woolly (using UV yarn) which I will share later. It really seems to work esp for newer anglers early in the season throwing wets, as nymphing in the early stages of learning can be quite unrewarding and technically difficult.

River color and a lot of stream mouths being  very tight or closed,  is limiting the whitebait’s run at present, but hopefully those of us that chase the sea runs feeding on them should have it better soon.

Will be interesting to see what the beetle flights will be like this year, as it has been a good winter for bugs (not to cold for too long) so hoping for another great dry fly season later on.

Fishing all next week as son off school so should hopefully have a better report soon.

If it stops bloody raining.

Cheers

Well the true Wairarapa summer has hit, 29-31 degrees and the river dropping faster than a politian’s credibility, river levels are very low in the Raumahunga and Waiohine, the forecast for later this week is rain, but then  it was for a couple  of days  last  week. Farmers are not allowed to pull water for irrigation now and water restrictions are in place for the townies.

It always surprises me when a well-known side creek here dries up every few years then when it starts running again it is quickly populated and fishes well.

Little bit of concern as the water heats up and the pools become crowded, lethargic and dead fish, as in the big drought a few years ago. Let’s see what happens this year; I hear they are moving fish in the mainland to lower reaches already.

Hatches are in full swing with some good late evening fishing, haven’t heard any consistent cicadas yet but soon it will be time to get on the bike and cycle up to some little creek that I am sure is around here somewhere………

Been having fun with wee wet blue duns fished across and down in really shallow sections late evening,  on a floating line, a newby we are helping nearly  tuna’d a fish ( except the tippet broke…..) as it drove a bow wave to get to the fly.

(tuna’d)  : To strike so hard the fish lands on the bank beside you.

Santa brought me  TFO  Axiom 6w for Xmas and I have to say it casts as well or better than some rods I have at three times the price, have had to go up on it,  a weight class or two nearly but it still throws well no matter what I line I use, WF, DT or depth finders.

Have to share last evenings fishing as I can’t be the only one this has happened to….

Beautiful evening, almost no wind, and we decide to go for a late evening fish, the good lady and son are coming so a great family evening in the outdoors.

Load up the truck, drive and then wander up to the bottom of a favourite long long pool and see fish already rising.

While two set up the rods the other goes and catches a couple of the mayflies floating past so we can match the hatch….  Looks like a size 12 Dads Fav  will do tonight  comes the sons opinion, one of us decides to try a small klink just in case.

We select our stations and quietly slip into the river……. I watch the son miss a fish on his second cast, small chuckle… still over eager he is (Yoda the wise statement)

3^rd cast a nose rises through the mirror, and my little klink vanishes in a little swirl, I wait, strike feel a good fish tear over to the deep channel peeling out the loose line, got him on the reel, he’s powering upstream, apply a little side strain and pop the hook pulls………….

Little smile from the good lady, shrug of the shoulders and the thought… well there will be another

Then my lesson began…….. 45 minutes and 5 lost fish later, I was getting a little wound up, have checked hooks, done everything I know just can’t keep them on, or hook them after the take.

Then I see a really good fish for this river in about 2 ft water feeding freely, sneak in behind, perfect cast to the side wrapping around ahead of him, watch him rise to it, here we go all will be forgiven…..slurp, wait, strike….. a solid feeling like getting snagged then nothing………  #%$&@ echos down the river, I am not happy… I look up and see my family laughing at me….. And then I laugh.

I learnt a valuable lesson last night… fishing is fun even when I get it wrong.

You won’t need wading boots on some sections of the rivers around here now, you would be lucky to get your toes wet wearing jandals, one mate commented  on the weekend.

There are fish around if you are prepared to walk where no one else can be bothered too, lots of pressure on the easy access  pools not only from the fisherman but this weekend nearly any spot that could be reached by a four-wheel drive seemed to have someone swimming in it. Some riffles have a few fish but some of the runs have a good build-up of slime (if good is a suitable word)

Good hatches occurring just not seeing the usual level of activity we would normally see, as you would suppose it is much more concentrated now.  An unconfirmed report from a cockie said he could count 80 plus fish from the cliff top above a pool through his property.

I hear the rivers around the lakes are fishing well so might be time for road trip.

After a couple of weeks off due to a shoulder injury, I finally got back on the water over the last few days, the rivers as expected are low but seem to have settled into a good rhythm, if that makes sense.  Wandering along the river it was good to see quite a lot of small fish ( 1lb) around  and the better runs  with some cover are holding some  nicely conditioned  fish.  As usual they can be few and far between, and most of the time seems to be taking dun colored emergers in the evening, and beetles during the day.  No cicadas yet…   Last night I threw half a fly box at a couple of nice little fish feeding really hard in the bubble line, sometimes just a nose would appear other times they nearly broached they hit that hard.  In the end I was successful with a 16 willow grub, which made little sense, but thats fishing.. Don’t know what they were feeding on in reality as I did not kill a beautifully conditioned 3lb hen who really did not want to come to the bank.

Hope you are all enjoying the season.

It’s amazing how a few short weeks can change things so drastically, 6 weeks of 30+ temperatures and we began to see something very unusual.

In one side creek that runs through a mate’s property, he noticed a large number of eels on the banks “gasping”?? There was also a white deposit in the creek, so he called in the local council who tested the water for O2 levels and found there was basically no oxygen in it.

So why? Being a clever chap he had noticed that the willows bordering the creek where absolutely covered in Aphids, I mean completely covered, feeding off the incredibly high sugar levels that willows produce, the resulting excrement was going straight into the river and un educated guess was that there was possibly some sort of significant Nitrate in it, which combined with the 2 km stretch meant significant damage was being done to the ecosystem.  Bugs not cows.

This gentleman collected up and disposed of about 40 eels, just in his section of the creek, some of quite significant size. This creek is spring fed.

  These nitrates caused a major increase in weed and slime production, all life in pools seemed to have died or disappeared, the growth continued   and then all of a sudden  the weed died and system totally collapsed  everything let go and now  nearly 3 months later the stream is pretty devoid of anything.

In the main river where we fish, insect life, bullies and general fish literally disappeared over a two week phase, maybe this was a contributing factor, but as you can’t fine bugs, who cares??

We have seen these aphids in the willows over the last three years, but never in the number we saw this year, they were so thick, if you parked under a willow and banged the branch above your car you literally got covered???

From what we can see it is only a local issue, possibly due to our unusually high temperatures we sustained in late summer this year.

Hi all,

Hopefully doing a drift dive with F&G Friday week, so will get a better idea of what's happening.

Mate just called as he was on his way back from Taupo so stopped at Vinegar Hill to have a cast in the Rangitikei, gave up pretty quick as he said there were small globs of green slime floating down the river, got fed up with cleaning it off.

Well go figure, upper half of the Rua is really low, Wardells Bridge is @ 2.9 Cumecs which is really low, but anywhere south of the Waiohine junction is going well, and down around Martinborough I here is outstanding. Really worth a float fish I would guess if you can.