Fishing report for the North Canterbury Region Friday 20th November 2020

Hello and welcome to the North Canterbury region fishing report. 

After a fantastic show weekend of sunshine it looks like back to typical spring weather this coming weekend. 

A North West front is expected to bring rain to the headwaters of the main rivers on Saturday. 

Above: Salmon should be showing up for anglers now in the Rakaia and Hurunui.

This is followed by a Southerly change and widespread rain on Sunday.

So what are the fishing options for this weekend? 

Most of the main alpine rivers will be fishable on Saturday as there will be a delay in the rising levels. 

River mouths for an early salmon or lowland areas will be the best places. 

The Rakaia and Hurunui should be producing some salmon by now. 

The water temperature is perfect and the colour of the rivers should be good on Saturday. 

The fresh due to come down on Sunday looks to be a reasonable one.  So salmon anglers should prepare for an early run later next week.

The high country will be wild, wet and windy on Saturday. 

Sunday will bring relief from the high winds but will still have some rain pushing up the valleys from the Southerly.

Backcountry rivers are going to be unfishable this weekend. 

This will provide a welcome rest to already weary trout. 

A fresh will reinvigorate these trout which will come on the feed early next week.

High country lakes will be very windy on Saturday. 

Not ideal for boating at all.  For those that are hardy enough you could fine some sheltered shorelines.

The warm weather last weekend brought on a hatch of brown beetles. 

Friday and Saturday evenings this week are the warmest forecast. 

Anglers should target lowland streams in the evening with beetle imitations.  Streams such as Silverstream, Selwyn and the L11 are known for beetle activity. 

The beetle's won’t come out until right on dark, however anglers should find suitable casting areas on large pools an hour before dark and try a beetle imitation. 

Trout start becoming active around this time and suddenly appear in a pool which seemed to hold nothing during daylight hours.

As it gets dark you will have to cast to splashes as the trout smash the beetles which clumsily land on the water. 

Don’t worry about presentation, just get the fly in the general direction. 

If it lands heavy it is not unlike the real thing, you will then have to tentatively strike whenever you hear a rise.

This is an exciting method that is very seasonal, our lowland streams have a great flow at the moment, thanks to some recent rain. 

These flows won’t last all season and the brown beetle activity dies off in a couple of weeks. 

So now is the time, there are plenty of lowland streams close to Christchurch that present some after work opportunities.

Check out the link below for fishing locations. 

If you scroll down to the bottom of the web page there are some downloadable PDFs on fishing locations. 

Among other there is one called “Close to Christchurch”.

https://fishandgame.org.nz/northcanterbury/freshwater-fishing-in-new-zealand/fishing-locations-and-access/

Notice of North Canterbury Fish & Game Annual General Meeting

You are warmly invited to attend our AGM, details below.

Location: North Canterbury Fish & Game, 595 Johns Rd.

Time: Wednesday 9th Dec – 6.30pm 

Tight lines.

Tony Hawker, North Canterbury Fish and Game  Officer