A considerable amount of rain fell last Sunday and it felt like a high percentage of it ran down my neck and up my sleeves while I fished. By mid-afternoon rivers were rising and discoloured, and because the land was already wet, water levels have dropped slowly this week. As usual, the smaller streams will clear and fall more quickly than the big waters.
Currently (a good word to use when discussing rivers) streams such as the Tokomairiro are fishable and the Waipahi will be so soon. The larger rivers, the Mataura and Taieri will be marginal at best by the weekend.
The weather forecast for the weekend is good and fishing the tussock lakes is an option. The lower Clutha is on the high side, but the upper river looks ideal where, of course, it is almost always clear, regardless of height.
Did I mention the rain?
It started raining on Sunday morning as Murray Smart and I drove to the Pomahaka and the rain was quite light to start with.
We fished near Kelso, Murray going upstream and I walked down to fish back up. I was amazed at the change in the river as a consequence of the record flood three weeks ago. In one place about 10m of bank had disappeared from the outside of a bend. Where there had been a deep hole there was a fast gravelly run, and where there had been trees, there were none.
Things had changed little where the riverbed was composed of rocky reefs and a couple of my favourite spots where intact.
At one point there is a low waterfall, which would not stop migratory fish, salmon or sea trout, but is enough of a hindrance to slow them up. In such places fish congregate below and above. Below they try to find a way past the obstacle and often get washed back and have to try again. Above the fall the fish rest to recover from their efforts.
I tried below the fall to start with. I covered the slack water with a bead head nymph, which would be more obvious in the slightly misty water. A few minutes after starting the line stopped and I tightened. It felt like hooking a branch, then it slowly took off upstream a long steady run against a strong current, then it headed for the far bank. It turned and ran rapidly towards me as I reeled quickly to keep in contact. It turned again and made a strong run down and across almost to the far bank then the tippet broke. I did not see the fish at any stage but it was big and strong. It could have been 7kg. It probably was not as big as that, but it is best to make the most of these opportunities even if they do not work out as we would like.
The rest of the day was a bit of an anti-climax with the odd minnow being hooked and landed, I hardly noticed really.
