Reel Life September 2025 - Southland

Just like that another season is about to begin!

After a relatively dry winter, spring in Southland has started wet. While our lakes have benefitted from a top up, most of our rivers are running high and discoloured.

Anglers will be hoping that conditions improve in time for Opening. However, successful anglers have learnt to juggle springs fickle conditions that can cause our mainstem rivers to be too full to fish.

If that’s the case come Opening, then consider adjacent backwaters and linked wetlands which are very productive food-wise and can grow large fish. The Rakatu wetlands (lower Waiau) is an often-overlooked example of such a fishery, and has browns, rainbows and perch.

Photo above: Vanessa walking back to the car after a successful outing at Rakatu Wetlands.

The Southland fishing season always gets off to a fast start with two cracking competitions.

• Te Anau Manapouri Fishing Classic. This is your chance to win a boat, and the odds are much higher than Lotto.
  Enter the competition, register a caught fish and you’re in with a chance.
  For more info and tickets, see here.

• McGregor Pond Take-A-Kid-Fishing. Southland Fish and Game raise ~400 pan-sized fish and release them days before the event. This family focused event always brings a smile to the young ones.
  
  We recommend using small soft-baits, or bait fishing as these have your highest chance of success.
  McGregor Pond is a Child & Junior only fishery and, importantly, is closed to fishing for the week ahead of the TAKF event.
  
  For more info and tickets, see here.  

For families unsure how to get your young ones rigged up, the instructions here are simple and effective.

Upcoming soft-bait fishing clinics – your chance to upskill

There are two soft-bait clinics coming up to help local anglers kick off another successful season.

Lance Gill @fishthedrift is a product specialist with Composite Developments who are the agents for Okuma and Rapala. He’ll present for ~45minutes by giving an overview of what is unique about soft-baiting, pros and cons of various equipment, as well as plenty of tips and tricks to improve your catch rate. A real take away from last year was the advice on retrievals.

• Te Anau
  Upukerora River Mouth, Friday 24^th October 4pm-5pm.

Note, the Te Anau session coincides with the Te Anau fishing competition when Te Anau is overflowing with keen anglers. The advice on offer here may just catch you the boat-winning fish!

Battling through rough spring weather on his Te Anau holiday, Cohen Watts was rewarded with his very first rainbow trout at the mouth of the Upukerora.

New & Improved Online Access Maps 

We’re stoked to launch our updated online access map for anglers and it’s available here. 

The map features

• A short, tailored description for each access point
• 1: 50 000 Topo map and satellite imagery basemaps.
• Land ownership overlays, including unformed legal roads (paper roads), marginal strips, hydro parcels, esplanade strips, esplanade reserves and DOC estate. These will help you understand areas where there is legal public access to waterbodies
• Boat ramps, DOC huts and campsites, and much more.
• A direct link to Google Maps for quick navigation.
• Live location tracking.
• A search function so you can find that spot you may have heard whispered in hushed tones.
• A filter system – so you can hone in on your preferences.

  A screenshot from our new online maps showing the new features.

We’re still adding more detail, so we’d love to hear your feedback — get in touch with our office to let us know what would make it even better.

Create a shortcut to the map on your phone’s home screen for quick and easy reference 

Keeping regulations simple

In recent times Southland Fish and Game has made a concerted effort to really simplify our regulations. We know that complex regulations are a physical and mental barrier for participation and enjoyment.

Across Southland waters (except the upper Oreti River above Mossburn), anglers may fly, spin, or bait fish, keep up to two trout per day, and there is no minimum size.

For Southland fishing regulations, click here.

Southland Staffing Changes 

For over forty years, Bill Jarvie has stood as a steadfast guardian of Fiordland’s freshwater fisheries, blending scientific rigor, local knowledge, and a warm, welcoming spirit — especially for young anglers witnessing the magic of their first catch.

His legacy is one of protecting our rivers, lakes, the creatures within, and being a wealth of local knowledge for all things Fiordland. Bill finishes up at the end of November.

For those interested in reading about Bills many and varied roles, you can read this bio.

Josh Tabak has been appointed as Bills replacement.  He holds a Master of Science in Ecology and is an experienced boat skipper, having grown up fishing and skippering boats on Auckland’s West Coast from a young age. Josh brings strong practical skills, compliance experience, and leadership capability from time spent managing crews. He’s a strong fit for the role.

He is a keen hunter gatherer and is very much looking forward to getting back to Fiordland.

Josh will be a great asset to the team and is due to start in early November.

Josh Tabak, taking detergent to a CCD station up the Clinton River during a summer role with Southland Fish and Game in 2021

Zane Moss retired and finished up ~30years with Southland Fish and Game in August. He started here as a Field Officer not long after finishing his tertiary training and has been the manager for the past 10 years. Zane has been a staunch champion for angler and hunter interests, an advocate for public access to maximise opportunities, and had a strong focus on enhancing the habitat available for sportsfish and gamebirds in Southland.

He has blended scientific rigor, a deep appreciation of our wildlife and their habitats, with a practical understanding of how anglers and hunters interact with, and sustainably utilise, our managed species.  

His contribution has been immense, and he will be missed.

Zane Moss with a trout that has benefited from his own management and advocacy.

The role of manager is currently being advertised, so if you consider yourself a good wildlife (and people) manager, then check out the job advertisement below. 

It closes soon, so you’ll need to act fast.

 

We wish all our anglers the very best for their early season fishing exploits.

If you have any photos or fishy stories that you think other anglers might like to see or read in next month’s Reel Life, then email them to southland@fishandgame.org.nz

All the best,

From the team at Southland Fish and Game