Well, there is blossom on the elder tree in the back garden, weeks earlier than normal due to the very mild spring.
So mild that when I checked the temperature of the Taieri River at Outram this week it was 13degC, which is 4-5degC warmer than normal for this time of year.
This is good news for the angler — trout will be feeding throughout the day, giving us greater opportunities to catch them.
Normally trout would not start until the water temperature reached 9-10degC, which would occur late morning. But as things stand, they will be on the feed much earlier.
Their favourite food, mayflies, will also be hatching by the middle of the day instead of mid-afternoon. Even better than that, the weather forecast for opening day is fine and mild.
River levels are also lower than would be expected for opening, making it easier to spot fish and cover more of the water.
The lack of big floods in the winter means there will be plenty of food available for trout. The only rivers that were hit hard with high water were the East and North Otago streams, but they should have recovered over the latter part of winter.
All this means that we have plenty of waters to choose from for opening and a better chance of catching fish regardless of the method employed.
In recent years still water has been the choice for opening with most rivers being high and coloured, but not this year — all waters are fishable as long as nothing goes wrong overnight.
Murray Smart and I have had a couple of practice sessions in September. The first was on the lower Clutha on the opening of the whitebait season. We did not see any whitebait but we saw a lot of whitebaiters.
Luckily, we did find some obliging trout which rounded out a perfect sunny day.
The next session was earlier this week when we fished Sullivans Dam, which again was a lovely sunny day — although we saw very few rises.
The fish appeared to be feeding down deep and they took damsel fly nymph that was given plenty of time to sink before starting the retrieve.
All the dams have been stocked recently and hold plenty of nice rainbows — Southern Reservoir probably has the greatest concentration of trout.
