Farewell to 2016, Christmas Holiday Fishing Trip ①
I have just been back from a week fishig trip 24-30Dec in Southland.
So here is the digest looking back the week.
Day1
Before I got to Mossburn where I had my base camp this time, I just sept half a day on the lower Mataura again staying at Gore for the first night.
Strong southerlies continuously blew up from downstream and no hatch occured. So fish kept heads down at this spot.
"No fish will rise in this windy condition." this was what I learned about fishing at this flat water spot in the past weeks and guessed so.
I moved and tried a new spot several kirometres down Mataura township.
In this part, the river goes more like winding and high bank on the other side. It looked kind of sheltered from the bad wind and I thought it was worth trying here. A nice and quiet spot.
At the very end of the day, a few fish finally rose up and I caught two of them weighed range 2－2.5lb.on #16 CDC Emergers.
Day2
I drove to Mossburn and fished the Oreti, not the upper Oreti but several km upstream of the town. The gate on this accsess was temporalily locked up for some reason when I came here in the Christmas time last year. So I hadn't fished this beat before.
Within an hour from the start, I hooked up the first fish! Strong fish!!
Yeees!
I was using Dry & Dropper Nymph Rig, #10 Stimulator for the dry and #12 Tungsten Beaded Caddis for the nymph. He took the dry at just under the drop off.
Nice and strong jack brown over 5lb with huge fins. Cool fish!
Lengthwise, just a mere short of 24inches, like 59cm.
At this time, I thought it was gonna be a good fishing day, but actually it went harder. Absolutely nothing for the next 3 hours and stopped fishing to check in the moter camp.
Here I come again. My favourite holiday park Mossburn Country Park.
After checking in, back on the water again. From the same access but went downstream to explore new water.
The sky beautifully cleared up in the late afternoon but nothing happend. Southerlies didn't stop to the end of the day so it felt like colder than it looks in this photo.
Manuka beatles were out there. These are one of those insects who remind us( fly fishermen in New Zealand) summer.
Day3
I fished the upper Oreti walk only zone, the beat directly upstream from the bottom of Oreti Rd.
When I arrived in the disignated car park, somebody's vehicle was already there parked at the Patterson's Bush Beat sign boad which was the further upstream beat. Whaao tough guy! I never choose the beat when all beats are available though...
And when I was just about to start walking, another fisherman drove in and took downstream beat.
Yes, start walking!
Been a year since I fished this beat last year.
River flow was slightly lower than last year when I was here. And very clear.
At most of the spots where I saw fish last year, I could spot some fish again but had no chance to take any one of them.
I caught nothing in 5.5hours fishing session. Soooo hard...
As I walked back to the car park, the angler who came after me and went downstream came back, too. He said he got one hooked up on a nymph but lost it, and another one came up to his dry fly but didn't hook up.
After having lunch break, I moved and took an access from Centre Hill Rd.
This was the beat where I caught my first Oreti brown a year ago. Not the walk only zone but I actually like this beat.
Before I left the walk only zone car park, it was turning more windy. So no one was here when I got down this beat and it was already too windy to start.
But I still wanted to fish the Oreti and tried for 1.5hours, but eventually gave up finding the condition unable to make good casts.
I drove to a small river near Mossburn to finish the day but was able to catch a wee brown only.
That's all right! Tomorrow will be another day.
I still have 4days left but the Oreti may have been too hard to catch fish. Maybe I should try another river and see how it goes..
