W4z Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Hey fellas, Last week I was over in NZ and had the chance to do a bit of trout and salmon fishing for a few days. It's not the best time of year for it and most of the higher lakes and streams are closed for winter. The lower reaches of rivers were generally open still so that's where we had planned to fish. Talking to as many locals as we could we kept hearing about the canals. We decided to head there first, about a 3 hour drive south of Christchurch. There are a lot of salmon farms along the canals and apparently a lot of the pellets that are fed to the salmon make it through the nets and the local wild trout and salmon get fat on them. It's not uncommon to catch 20lb + fish. Trophy size here is about 30lb. We arrived late one night at Ohau and headed straight to one of the canals. You are allowed to bait fish here, and as recommended by a few locals, we started with cooked frozen shrimp from the super market. One small rainbow was landed between the 3 of us and it had our hopes up for the next day. It rained almost all day the next day. We fished across from some of the salmon enclosures and I caught a small rainbow on shrimp. Didn't have any luck with lures. I think a couple of other small rainbows were caught by my mates too. The day after we had to start heading back to Christchurch but we stopped along the way in Tekapo at another canal. We could see here a lot of fish. Some very unhealthy chinook salmon and some healthy rainbows showed themselves. One rainbow I saw would have been close to 20lb. The chinook were cruising the shallows but weren't interested in anything we threw at them. Tried a variety of lure and some flys without much luck. Soft plastics seemed to work the best. 3" berkley minnows. I landed a nice little chinook. Definitely no monster but I was happy to get my first salmon. I also hooked a good brown I estimate was about 50cm. Had a good fight for a about a minute until the hook pulled. One of my mates landed a 60cm brown. It was nice and healthy. We tried a river near Christchurch but it was flowing hard and murky with all the rain (about four days straight almost non stop) so didn't have any luck. We also tried fishing the small river that flows right through the centre of Christchurch and saw a few fish but couldn't tempt any of them. All in all it was a good trip and we learnt a lot. I really want to go back but towards the end of summer to fish the high country with a fly rod. Another thing to ad to the to do list haha. Hope I haven't bored you. It was a bit of a learning curve fishing in a new country. Cheers Waz Side note - the canals are a part of a hydro electricity scheme. They are man made and the rate of flow depends on the amount of power needed at the time Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefisherman6784 Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Not not a boring report It was a great read Always learning new things and I'm sure next time u go there you'll be more prepared and ready to go Nice fish Well done Cheers thefishermsn6784 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leuke Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Nice report. I'd love to go back to NZ now that I have an interest in fishing. It's such beautiful country, I reckon you could spend weeks on end walking the rivers and streams looking for fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W4z Posted June 15, 2014 Author Share Posted June 15, 2014 Cheers guys. Yeah leuke there are so many rivers there that I reckon you could spend a lifetime walking them and probably still not get to them all. They all look so good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luderick -angler Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 The south island had some beautiful fishing and those fatties in the canals feeding up on the pellets from the pens are amazing in size! It takes a lot for the big rivers near Christchurch to clear! And yes there are some good fish in the river Avon in the city crazy seeing trout in the Idle of a city!!!! Well done its a trout mecca! I spent 5 years working and living in Wellington and only scratched the surface of fish able water!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W4z Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 The south island had some beautiful fishing and those fatties in the canals feeding up on the pellets from the pens are amazing in size! It takes a lot for the big rivers near Christchurch to clear! And yes there are some good fish in the river Avon in the city crazy seeing trout in the Idle of a city!!!! Well done its a trout mecca! I spent 5 years working and living in Wellington and only scratched the surface of fish able water!!! Yeah it was cool seeing trout in the middle of Christchurch. Shame that the coat of living is so high over there in comparison to the pay rates. Otherwise it would be an awesome country to live in. The huge fish in the canals are pretty cool but to be honest I personally prefer fishing in a more natural setting. When I go back I'll be aiming to get into the high country. If it was a winter trip again though I probably would fish the canals as it seems like they're the best fishing at this time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luderick -angler Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 If you go in winter head to taupo you have man rivers to choose from and one of the few places in the world where you ca fish a Californian steelehead strain spawn run I rivers you can also experience fishing the river mouths for fish waiting to run the rivers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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