Wildside- Winter Fishing

Fishing for hardy souls

© Zane Mirfin, Wildside column, Fishing for hardy souls, Nelson Mail, 13 August 2011

Hardy Soul: Rod Duke flyfishing the Motueka River, 1st August 2011

It’s a fact of outdoor life that the winter months of June, July and August are some of the toughest to hunt and fish. The weather can be cold and bleak and the days short, while the fish and game themselves are often hard to find, tucked away somewhere safe, waiting for spring to come and their natural biorhythms to kick back into turbo mode.

Some species of saltwater fish retreat into deeper water where they can school up in large shoals over foul ground. If you can find them, there can be some epic fishing although they can be a little dour in winter and may take a bit more coaxing than normal to eat the bait.

Some of the best techniques for winter saltwater fishing and less active fish is to use jigs developed by Japanese anglers known as ‘‘slow jigs’’ which have long rubber tentacles and are slowly worked up and down near the bottom. Fished with braided line you can feel the fish nibbling and mouthing the bait and there is no sudden strike, just a heavy weight gradually bending the rod as the fish hooks itself.

It can be cold heading out in the boat, but the real tough guys of winter fishing are the trout anglers. Standing out submerged in frigid water above your gonads takes real commitment – some would say stupidity.

Good quality waders and woolly gear are essential to stay warm and if you are wading deep you’ll only last a few hours before the water temperature drives you to shore with shrunken assets.

Water temperature controls fishing success during winter months and if the water is too cold the fish will be lethargic and less responsive. Many trout are away spawning in up-country streams protected by the closed season but here in Nelson and other areas around the country we are fortunate to have a good selection of waters open year-round, generally the lower reaches of our big lowland rivers and many lake fisheries.

Cold frosty days are beautiful onstream as the sun gets high in the sky but there is no need to get to the water early as a few hours of sun on the water will often induce water temperatures to rise and fish to become more active.

Many trout do not spawn each winter and these often smaller maiden fish make up a good proportion of the winter trout fishing bag. Hatches of insects are rare in mid-winter and most fish will be caught fishing deep and slow in deeper and more placid stretches of river.

Most fish will be caught fishing ‘‘blind’’ as trout will be deeper, less visible and in more secluded lies than they often occupy during active summer fishing. Fishing tungsten beaded nymph patterns is one way of getting your flies deep, but split shot, and even full sinking fly lines are worth a go if all else fails.

Just the other day, we were out trout fishing but the fly fishing just wasn’t happening. At a maximum temperature of 6.8 degrees Celsius, the fish seemed to have lockjaw.

Switching to spin fishing gear didn’t work much better, but when I changed to some homemade leadbodied spinners with revolving blades we finally started to get into the fish. Maybe it was later in the day and the fish had become more active, but it appeared that the heavier lures which could be slowly worked through likely holding water spent more time in the bingo zone and received much more attention from the brown trout.

We checked two fish, and interestingly, both had virtually nothing in their tummies, just a few isolated horn caddis nymphs, but at least we’d proven brown trout can be caught even on one of the coldest days of the year.

Rainbow trout are less common locally but tend to feed more voraciously into colder winter conditions, making them a prime target for mid-winter fishing. Some of the best winter trout fishing in New Zealand happens in the trout factory known as Lake Taupo and its tributary streams which can be loaded with prime rainbow trout ascending their natal rivers to spawn. Rivers such as the Tongariro, Waitahanui, Tauranga-Taupo and Hinemaiaia are world famous and the angling history here is as much an attraction as the trout.

The opportunity to fish famous pools, fished and often named by famous anglers such as Zane Grey, Vice-Admiral Hickling and Budge Hintz add to the experience and to the carnival-like atmosphere that sees rivers crowded when the rainbows are running.