Reel Life December 2024 - North Canterbury

Approaching the end of 2024 already, first and foremost, the team here would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The past month has seen a drastic increase in temperature, with some days reaching as high as 30 degrees. Despite some hot days, the region, specifically the high country, has still faced enough rain to keep the rivers rather challenging. This, however, has left tributaries of rivers and lakes fishing very well. With the beginning of the summer and terrestrials dropping onto the water, the fish are beginning to pack in excellent condition and take those dry flies.

There are good numbers of baitfish, such as smelt, in the lowland rivers at present, and these represent a substantial food source for trout, so don’t hesitate to try a silver lure, soft bait or fly. Maybe try a silver toby or grey ghost to entice them. When the rivers are discoloured, trout are often less cautious and don’t have the same opportunity to inspect anglers' offerings as when the rivers are low and clear.

When imitating baitfish, ensure you vary your retrieve and do not be too hasty before pulling your lure or fly out of the water. Fish will sometimes take when you pause before lifting out of the water or when you slow down your retrieve.

With our big, braided rivers being dirty and unfishable over the past few weeks, there has been very little action on the salmon fishing front however, with the little windows of opportunity, there have been a couple of salmon caught in the Rakaia so once the river clears up and becomes more stable than the Rakaia will be your best chance to catch a salmon.

Lake Coleridge Trout Recruitment Survey

The team recently spent a couple of days electro-fishing some of the spawning streams, which help repopulate the Lake Coleridge Fishery to see what juvenile trout were in the streams post-spawning.

The team found a good number of juvenile brown and rainbow trout as well as native species, which shows that these streams are healthy, which shows the fishery has a good future ahead.

The size of the juveniles varied from 26mm to 38mm, which is typical for this time of the year as they have just hatched out and are only 1-2 months old.

We wish you all a safe, relaxing and enjoyable holiday season.