After having a great fishing on Sunday before last, I went back to the river for half a day fishing on Monday.
Not much fish activities were seen on the river.
But a nice rising fish took my dry #16 CDC Quill Dun off the top.
Nice strong fish!
A quality 3lb hen with autumn leaves.
Always fun to catch brownies!
And the long Easter weekend started from Good Friday, one of the public holidays.
Everyone loves public holidays in NZ because you get paid without working as much as you usually get paid when you work on those days.
So I just go fishing and get paid! hehehe...
For me, Good Friday was supposed to be a good Friday because there was no much rain after my last fishing on Monday.
And the weather was perfect, such a beautiful day but...
The river water was unexpectedly going up and discoloured....
Ohhhh,Noooo....
How come???
So I just gave up to fish my favorite stretch at middle part of the river and decided to go further up the river beyond the confluence of one of the tributaries which might have been causing this water rise I thought.
Ummmm.... I want to fish!
Upper reach of my home river. The aspect of the river is more like spring creek at upper part.
Although the water colour looked better than that of at middle reach, it was discoloured even at upper as well.
I could barely make a couple of small ones bite on gold bead nymphs.
Nothing much exciting...
Okay, unfortunately the river is not really fishable today. I understand it happens. But I should use this occasion to find out new fishing spots for the next season.
Moved to another stretch.
Attractive good looking pieces of the river. They looked worth coming back to fish when the water is good!
One of the tributaries flowing into the main stream. I thought this tributary was the cause of the turbid high water at the middle reach of the main river. But actually it wasn't. Bad water was coming down from up the main stream. The water was very clear and low at this tributary and I saw no fish here at all.
On my way back from upper river, I stopped at my favorite stretch to have a look.
Noooo, the water was getting even higher than that was in the morning and badly discoloured.
No chance to fish at all. I just left the river earlier.
" Mmmm, I have to work tomorrow(Sat), and am going to fish on Sun and Mon.
So I have to find out which river I should be to fish."
I arrived at the river at 9:40 and started fishing at 9:55 Sunday morning.
The river water looked good colour as well as its level, a wee bit lower than the last week.
I thought like " Mmmm, it's a top condition, isn't it! " and expected a good fishing day.
It was a quiet start getting no bite out of a couple of key spots in the first 20mins and I felt like fish were not moving yet.
After 20mins from the start, the first fish put a good bend in my rod.
A good strong fish took a nymph.
I had uncased my Scott G2 905/4 for the first time since Christmas holiday to make a better presentation for when I got a dry action later on the day.
Fish just started moving after I caught the first one. I kept hooking up a fish every 10mins.
Getting excited!
Nice 3.5lb jack, 21inches.
And then, hooked up one more jack from the same spot.
3lb,20inches jack.
After all, 7 fish in the first two hours and move on to the next stretch.
Another nice jack 23inches.
I thought I had caught this fish before, actually it was two weeks ago. He stayed exactly the same spot in the run but was stronger to fight with than the last time and had gained his weight a little bit more.
Good to know you were still well there!
Actually this part of the river has been like my own " Catch & Release" stretch. I've been catching many of the same browns twice or even three times and haven't seen any other fisherman at all.
That's amazing, just the South thing!
Fish, fish, fish!!
And around 3PM, a big one put a full bend in my Scott G2.
An awesome jack with an awesome colour!
This jack weighed 5.5lb, 24inches in length.
What a great fishing day!
My Scott G2 has always been my lucky rod, not much used in this season though...
It was really nice seeing you!
Autumn is runnning away so fast. Everytime I come back here, the river is changing its colour.
But it is so nice to see beautiful autumn colour fish in autumn scenes.
Two more over 3lb strong hens at the end of the day.
The river was different this week. No fish took dry fly action but quite good for nymphing throughout the day.
I caught 15 fish all together, dropped just one fish. Although my catching rate is usually 70%, it was like 93% today. Wow, well done for myself!
Time flies, only one month to end my first season in the South.
What kind of drama is going to happen in the next month?
I finally got my car back with a new windscreen after the panel beater and the vehicle glass shop had got their job done during the week which was cool because I did not have to waste my weekend for fishing. It cost much for the panel beater and WoF done, but that's that.
I just keep going fishig anyway.
There was a rain on Saturday night again and I checked the river flow infomation web site. According to that, the water should be all right at my home river.
It was quite chilly throughtout the day on the river with some drizzle in the morning.
But fish took nymphs well all morning.
I took four fish out of the same stretch where I've been finding one of the most productive pieces of the river in the middle reach.
The colour of leaves started turning yellow, autumn leaves.
Although fish were kind of disappering from first runs, riffles, some good runs still hold fish.
And this was one of those good fish who took a nymph in the fast run.
In the afternoon, some fish started to rise and took dry fly action.
Hooked up a good one in a slower run.
A nice and fat 4lb hen.
Awesome colour fish!
When I reached the drop-off where I caught the best fish on last Sunday, I found a good one rising and taking something on the surface.
OMG, I must take that one!
I tied a #16 Quill Body Para, a may fly imitation pattern on 4X tippet and quietly presented.
But the fish never responded to it, just kept taking something here there around my dry...
Next, I tried #16 Quill CDC Dun, one of the dry flies I have the greatest confidence with to take rising fish.
And the fish once rose to it but refuse...OMG, didn't take it!
And then, I tied #14 Floating nymph on thinking like "Definitely, This is it!", but didn't work at all.
"Caddis? I don't think so though..." I tried #16 Caddis anyway but "No".
"Uhhh, Willow Grub? Surely not, but I should make sure it's not." And it was NOT.
Uhhh, I almost throw my hands up but the fish was still rising and I really wanted to make it bite.
All five different patterns have already been refused.
"Anything else I can try?"
Looking over my dry fly box, I found a couple of #16 Spent Spinners there and they reminded me some past fishing experience in Japan that Spent fies worked amazing for Japanese Cherry Trout, "YAMAME" sometimes, especially in spring and autumn.
So I took out one of those and tied on and put it on the feeding lane.
And he just took it aggressively without any doubt! It was a nice jack, 55-60cm in length.
As he kept running downstream, I had to chase him 60-70m down just like the best fish I caught on last Sunday.
Unfortunately, I dropped the fish before geting him in my net. I didn't loose the line tension but just hooked out for some reason. And I thought that it was the same fish as the last Sunday's one again. At exactly the same spot, the same size fish and same way to fight.
Actually, I've caught the same brown trout twice or even three times and this happens quite often.
Sometimes I catch the same fish twice on the same day or two weeks back to back or even 4weeks later than the first catch, I fish the same one at the same spot again. And I feel kind of happy to know that my catch & release works well and they are still strong enough to fight for the second time.
After I lost this fish, the river went quiet and no rise happend and no may fly hatch was seen in the evening. I think because of the low temp, rises happend earlier on the day.
Anyway, I enjoyed an exciting match-the-hatch moment and hope I could have that again next weekend.
