OPEN WATERS

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Opening weekend 2000, the first trout-fishing season of the new millennium. The weeks leading up to the big day had been unsettled rain, snow, wind and glorious sunny days, the weathermen told us of the biggest hole in the ozone layer since records began, Thursday and Friday before were glorious, the opening looked promising, anglers throughout Otago and Southland were earning brownie points flat out the noise from lawnmowers and weedeater was deafening a blue haze was seen over Dunedin, Gore, Invercargill all the way down to Bluff, the gardens were immaculate as the anglers left their beloved on Saturday.

The blue haze was quickly dispersed as the wind got up and the rain set in , but hey, what the hell we're going fishing ,this is what you've grown to expect.

Sunday dawned fine with nor westers, but the rain from Saturday had coloured our favorite stream and also our second favorite, still the Mataura looked good, so we set off for Cattle Flat, Mike, Phil, Richard, Rowdy and myself. Traffic was light as we headed up the track; around the corner by the lagoons the small moustached one minus his appendage was just tackling up we gave him a wave and drove on. Further on we saw several more anglers already on the water, but there’s heaps of river up there, plenty of room for everyone. Phil and myself were dropped off by gate and the others carried on up the track.

The first trout was spotted just where you would expect it to be sitting close into the bank behind the big rock, feeding away merrily, it still is. Phil crossed the river and away we went. The river had changed after the big flood last year, around the corner a new flood bank had been built with huge rocks a perfect place for trout and lunch, sitting down on the rocks I was not surprised when not one but two large trout swam by feeding off the surface, lunch could wait, the big jack disappeared into the depths never to be seen again, the hen fish carried on slurping away, after several refusals it took a size 16 emerger and was quickly released unharmed. At the head of the pool a new backwater had formed and where the main river met the backwater behind the sunken trees were four beauties there for the taking, after emptying the fly box on them with no success I gave up and had lunch.

Up the river Phil had hooked and lost a couple in backwaters. When we met Mike much later than arranged we learnt he had none but Richard and Rowdy had caught good fish, again in backwaters.

We returned to Knapdale for tea and met up with the last of the anglers to arrive, Chef McGuire and Tony the rocket scientist. In between beer and Irish whisky Tony explained how he had patented the Irish rocket using tea bags to propel this awesome projectile, I can't divulge too many details but if you see him at the Waipahi Gold Medal he might just pass on the secret for a few beers.

Monday, the wind arrived and the rain set in, the river was discoloured as we tackled up at Brian’s place, Tony and the Chef fished the big flat above the ripple, Phil, the bottom ripple, Mike and myself the top one , after half an hour it was becoming obvious it was going to be a hard days fishing , as I moved to the top of the flat I was met by Brian the landowner, he’d been home for his rod after seeing fish rising as he checked his stock, needless to say the fish never rose again. Down below the Chef and the Rocket scientist changed tactics, away went the nymphs and bead heads to be replaced by bloody big Wooly buggers. A shout from the Chef " It must be 4lb, no no its only about 3, no hang on it could be 6 ". Phil was standing on the bank watching all this and dryly said, " If it got away it would have been at least 10lb "

The wooly Buggers took ten fish the others none.

After lunch the weather turned worse the rain was horizontal and the wind a biting cold southerly, we headed up the river looking for shelter, near the wood factory we waited for the wind to drop and about 4 O'clock it did and the sun shone briefly , the fish started rising Phil took two, one on an Adams the other , a nice fresh searun trout on a heavy nymph, I got mine on a small emerger at the top of a bouldery run. No sooner had the hatch started than it finished, but for that one-hour we had fun casting to rising fish, things were looking good for the remaining two days.

Tuesday we went to the lake after rainbows, what a mistake that was. As we called in to see the farmer the wind got stronger and the rain began to fall " It’ll be windy up there today " he wasn’t wrong. We drove round the lake trying to get the wind at back of us. Casting into the whitecaps was easy with a gale force southerly over your shoulder, rain soon turned to sleet then hail, god we must be mad to be fishing in this, but aren’t all anglers slightly mad at the start of October. Mike got the only rainbow for the weekend a beautiful jack of 4lb, but it was too big for to star in his video on fish smoking, so it was released after being photographed.

The Mararoa is a mighty river, mighty wet mighty windy, might as well head home. Richard left us at Mossburn to return to his beloved and his wife at Wanaka, we headed for Lumsden. After feasting on homemade cakes we fished the Oreti, the sun was shining things were brightening up, with added vigor we tackled up, big may flies were drifting down the river as we thrashed the water to a foam, never saw a fish, after getting smacked around the head with heavy nymphs and bead heads for two hours I gave up. Phil was the only one of us to touch a fish..

Eric the Viking and Lyn arrived for tea and the day looked to be improving, the Waipahi was still fishable, Lyn told us, so that was the plan for Wednesday.

We were greeted to a glorious sunrise followed by rainbows, not the fishy type but the ones you see in the sky, very soon afterwards by very black skies approaching from the south, might be home early, vehicles were quickly packed in the pouring rain, not looking promising for the Waipahi. The Chef was busy with the vacuum cleaner ignore all the sleazy comments and offers of sex he looked cute in his apron he’d make someone a good wife if he wasn’t so butch. Leaving Eric and Lyn we headed for the Waipahi and were surprised to find it fishable if you were really desperate and we were. The rain stopped and the sun tried to shine the southerly kept blowing prefect conditions for the Waipahi or so it should have been, but after several fishless hours we had to admit defeat and head home reflecting on what should have been four great days fishing hauling out big from whichever stream or river we fished, but in reality opening days are never about lots of fish, more about renewing acquaintances with the rivers and streams you know and catching up with good friends you see only briefly through the year. Oh yeah, the hole in the ozone layer, it could be Tony’s Irish rockets, its defiantly not the wooly buggers, its far more likely to be as I have discovered after exhaustive research and scientific tests conducted by NIWA the fumes from lawnmowers and weed eaters, because this phenomena only occurs at the beginning of the fishing season.

So my advice to all anglers contemplating fishing the opening is forget about scoring brownie points and to leave the lawnmower in the shed till about the third week in October.

My apologies to Otago Anglers for not getting the right projector on the night -- well you have the picture now and the story is

fairly easy to follow. What is difficult is explaining the present situation.. As you can see from the graph the Pomahaka

was performing all right, popular with anglers from Dunedin southwards, reasonable sized fish with an average of 40 cm in the

lower river and 52.5cm in the upper river. The Otago Acclimatisation Society had the foresight to carry out creel surveys so that

they had a good idea of what was happening, and these started in 1973. From 1973 to 1980 the lower river was popular with about 0.4 to 0.5 anglers per kilometer per day (or if you prefer, about one angler every 2 kilometer averaged over weekdays and

Weekend days). The catch rate for the same period was 0.18 fish per hour which is a little better than the long term Otago

Average of about 0.15 fish per hour. Did you sometimes come home without fish then? If so you might belong to the majority since about 73% of anglers when interviewed had no fish. But of course they could have caught fish after being interviewed so that figure of 73% is a maximum. Then in 1981- 82 the catch rate went down to about 0.04 fish per hour (or put another way it took about 25 hours to catch a fish). We still don't know what happened that year, and if any of you regulars out their can recall anything at all about that year please contact me. Anybody keep a diary? Anyway after that the anglers stayed away to the extent of about 90 % (or in other words about 0.05 anglers per kilometer per day). Looking at the figures it is not easy to explain -- after 1982 the average size of fish caught was 44.8 cm, and the catch rate looked better at 0.28 fish per hour. Perhaps angler talk was the factor -- if your mate says a river is no good you tend to believe him. But some people are catching fish there! Another suggestion is that the food supply had deteriorated due to agriculture and there is evidence to support this. This might mean that fly anglers would not do so well but bait and threadline might still work. Has anybody any comment on fly life or regular rises?

So there is a problem. If you have any ideas try me at 4896263.

Otago Anglers Association (Inc.)

The first Anglers Club established in New Zealand.

Founded at Dunedin, August 24, 1881, in the

Interests of Anglers.