6 hours on the lake in the arvo 4 browns / 6 rainbows nothing worth talking about 

The top end from the point of the bay by the earth dam up is silted up badly to the point even with my shallow draw boat and minn kota could get far up.

gave up and fished lake matahina for the morning early arvo , up from the island by the weed bed . 6 browns / 5 rainbows - of which 2 were keepers for the smoker.

so lake aniwhenua is a bust i feel for another year or so unless the power company drains it again. from talks with the lodge guys the company has resource consent to drain the lake up to 3 times a year ....so might be stuffed for good. pity as i have fished it for over 27 years since its hay day 

Tons of weed everywhere, but although we did see some rises and one big fish porpoising about, there was not the usual constant surface splashing that we've seen in past years.

We only fish there once a year, but the lake seemed in reasonably good nick. Stunning evening to be on the water.

whenua is still very silted up , using down scan and side scan there is mostly muddy bottom , no fish sign and the occasional weed head starting to come back. 

fishing the structure we did find there was always 2-3 browns in close proximity and the odd rainbow.

Lake matahina is weed free now at the top and free of fish as well it seems. at the very top along the willow edges there was the odd rainbow but not much else. dead deer floating down , lots of slips 

total for the time , 18 fish , mostly browns , nothing over 2 lb , mostly 1lb 

no weed = no food = no fish of size 

i wonder if the floods last year changed the character of the lake, although maybe we're still seeing the effects of the lake-lowering of a few years back. Seemed to be plenty of weed about.

The lake was drained in March so didn't expect much , but good weed banks back although half the lake now is silted up wheres its only 500mm deep ...

not alot of fish movement , past spots were dead . found some new locations with deeper water and pulled 21 fish for the time spent.

nothing big , more rainbows then browns. rainbows where only hitting fast moving retrieves and baby browns were in the deeper channels (4-5m )  

looking better for spring if the fish keep growing. 

Been fishing Aniwhenua since 1995 and it has certainly changed over the years. Was my favourite place to fish right up until they started draining it every summer 3-4 years ago. Never been the same since with far fewer fish (due to less weed and less food) and consequently the Horomunga river doesn't fish as well in May/June as it used to either.

It used to be a bad day on the lake if I caught less than 10 fish, now it's a good day if I can manage 10 to the boat.

My fishing this last summer has been mostly in the top delta area and there have been good numbers up there for once, tho still mostly in the 1-2lb class but enough 2-3s to keep me happy.

As the lake has changed in nature I've had to change the way and places I fish it, tho it's still hard fishing compared to yesteryear.

Going down this week for a day on the Horomunga and a day on the lake to field test a new kayak accessory I am developing so hoping to land a few on the bigger size to see how well my new device works at holding fish.

If the power company could just not drain the lake next summer it might actually recover a little.

Saturday morning was quite, but the arvo session went well , chasing browns in a deep hole i know of, landed 11 browns and 1 rainbow.  best fish approx 6-7lb brown. 

everything released. 

i will upload a vid this week.

Thanks for the heads up on the dewatering mate as the fishing dies big time when they do that. Shame as it was just starting to get good again .

Will be heading there again now ASAP.

they are all on the rhd side of the lake heading up the lake, from opp. the stream inlet up to and inline with the break water .

drift the current line

Thanks for the tips Advtracing.

I fish from a kayak and was up there last month and got 14 to the boat.

Best was this 5lb rainbow:

https://youtu.be/W8uMhMEJa0k" rel="nofollow - https://youtu.be/W8uMhMEJa0k

Got down the lake yesterday to a beautiful glassy morning and the trout rising a plenty.

Certainly the worst weed I've seen for years, but the more weed, the more fish, so I love it nice and weedy, tho I can see that's why  they need to drain it.

Had a great day and as always, lost more than I boated and the biggest one busted me off as they usually do after a few jumps.

The lake was also quite dirty/milky so viz was terrible, probably from someone extracting shingle upstream as they sometimes do. So fish were only (biting) in the few clear pockets I could find. Had it all been clear it would have been an amazing day for sure.

Will try and get an exact date for draining so I can hit it before they do.

Here's a link to a video of the day I had...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBOZ4Sl-Zq" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBOZ4Sl-Zq k

Back in the net weed days I used to fly fish from the shore (walking around from the main carpark area), nymph and indicator. Got some monster rainbows, like most people, and it was a fun place to fish.

Also memorably got a lovely brown up the top end, hiding behind a flax bush and dangling a tiny waterboatman fly off the rod tip as it cruised the shallows. It went ballistic.