WEe have had the first frost on the Taieri Plain this week and throughout the region water temperatures have plummeted, in many cases to single digits - autumn is here. However, the weather forecast for the weekend is good and there are waters that are fishable. Our larger rivers, the Taieri and the Mataura, are on the high side and their tributaries will be a better choice for fishing. The lower Clutha has been at a relatively low level for much of the last month and should remain that way for the weekend and is well worth a look.
The cooler water should encourage mayfly hatches in the afternoons and small rainfed waters such as the Waipahi and Waiwera can provide great sport at this time of year. Even streams like the Kaihiku, which is very small, are worth checking out.
The Kaihiku does not hold a lot of trout, but there are enough good ones to hold an angler's attention, especially if there are mayflies on the water.
On a totally different tack, stillwaters come into their own at this time of year. One of my favourites is Matthias Dam on the Maniototo. Although frosty mornings make it difficult to leave a warm bed, such mornings provide great midge fishing on this dam. I can recall occasions when my fingers were numb with cold and trout were rising all around.
They were taking midge pupae just below the surface and even the thought of breakfast and a hot cup of tea could not drag me away. Trout come into very shallow water when feeding on midge and it pays to start casting well back from the water's edge to avoid spooking them. As the sun comes up and the water begins to warm the trout retreat to deeper water but the good fishing often continues, this time to water boatman or damsel fly nymph.
Having recently fished the dams on the Maniototo, I was thinking how often I have fished one dam and have struggled to catch fish then taken off for another dam hoping things would be better there. Usually it is no better or not much better and very rarely has there been a marked improvement in my catch rate. If the fishing is hard it just means that whatever the method being used is not matching what the trout are feeding on or it is not being fished in the right way in the right place.
If fish are hard to come by do something different.
Usually there are limited choices of food for the trout, and as long as a fly fisher has a fly that looks like something on which the rout feed regularly there are three main ways of varying the approach.
One is changing the depth that the fly is fished or trying a different part of the dam and lastly varying the speed that the fly is retrieved.
If none of those work, breakfast and a hot cup of tea are a good alternative.
• By Mike Weddell.
