Most of the rivers that are not sourced from the main divide in the Southern Alps are dropping in level rapidly as hot, dry norwesters have been consistently hitting the region all through spring and early summer.
The larger rivers, sourced from large snowfields and the main divide are getting enough melt and 'spill-over' from the West Coast rain that they are holding their level reasonably well.
These conditions saw me heading up to the Ohau River on a few nights back looking to repeat the same results achieved on the Fraser with an evening hatch, except on a river that is about ten times the size. There's heaps of didymo in the Ohau too, but it holds heaps of fish, and doesn't get as much pressure as many of the rivers up here.
There had been a cool easterly blowing up some cool sea air for the first time in a few weeks, and the lower air temperature seemed to affect the sedge hatch on the river. Arriving at the river around nine was a bit early, so I spent a lot of time sitting on the bank and not doing much, waiting for some fish to show themselves in a 100 m long run that was smooth and slow moving. one cruised past close by, but not much was happening until about 10:00.
At the same time as a small hatch broke out, half of Timaru appeared to come spotlighting down the far bank of the river, which was normally OK, until somebody let rip with a shotgun at a rabbit in the general direction of yours truly. I let rip with a few choice words at full volumem, which sent them off to recklessly discharge firearms somewhere else.
Now where was I? Ahh yes, the hatch. A few quiet 'plops' punctuated the near silence, one fish just down-stream and three meters off the bank became quite active. moving below it on the river bank, I managed to get some good dead-drifts past the fish going on. It took a few casts to elicit a take, but as the light faded he kept rising in the same position, and finally took the imitation - a Dads Favourite I think. The 2lb rainbow put up a struggle akin to a fish much bigger, and took some ten minutes to finally land. I was keen to release it, but as I slipped it into the net it flopped off the rim of the net and up onto the river bank. after a few seconds of thrashing on the rocks it was looking a bit worse for wear, so I elected to bang it on the head, and take it home for tomorrows tea, instead of risking it failing to recover from it's injuries while on shore.
The moon was up, but covered in cloud, which made the now rather sporadic rises hard to pick, so home we went. So far on similar sorties the Ohau hasn't produced spectacular fishing, but I'm pretty confident that on a warm, still night, some sections of the river have a lot of potential. will keep you posted.
