We almost got up Boxing Day morning but decided to sleep in for a change. So we got up bright and early and made it to Matahina a little after 10 AM the day after Boxing Day. I was surprised when Dan picked the lake edge again instead of going down the river. I still have not been down the river yet as the lake is on fire!
The weather was perfectly calm and mostly sunny; this was not so great as we forgot the sunblock. We always seem to forget something. With the lake warming it can be a real challenge catching trout on the edge in the middle of the day. Many fish spend their days in the deeper, cooler water during summer. The goal today was to catch trout on new fly patterns. Dan started with a bead head grey bugger. and we headed up river left in the canoe. If you are floating down a river and look at the river bank, that is river left. Dan is a lefty so casting to his right works for him. Of course we are fishing the edge of the lake hoping to intercept feeding trout in shallow water. We also take turns while the other paddles along. Usually we change when a fish is caught or there is a penalty. If you hook shore and we have to go get the fly out, your turn is over. It is sort of like a yellow card in rugby and you are sent to the sin bin.
It took a couple of hours until I finally managed to hook and land a small rainbow. We had only seen one other fish before that. The next fly was a yellow lady streamer that Dan caught a nice brown trout with. Then we did our first underwater release with the new GoPro, poorly.
What did the trout think the yellow lady represented? I would have to say food. But seriously it most likely looked like a gold fish which can be abundant when recruitment is good. I have not seen a lot of gold fish since the flooads in April 2017. The trout have been targeting Gambusia (aka mosquito fish and they look and breed like guppies). They are prolific in Matahina. So any fly that sort of looks like a little fish is going to work; you just have to work it.
The green orbit went on next and I soon missed a fish. The breeze had started to pick up a little by this point. Then I had a very lucky cast to where we saw a fish rise and boom! A green and black bugger did the trick next and it all seemed to start happening. A Taupo tiger succeeded in a short time. Dan got the next one on a yellow Dorothy. A silver Dorothy went on next and I failed to hook a fish so it was Dan's turn.
The northerly had really come up and it was a struggle to paddle against it. Then we started spotting fish rising in the wind. I held onto a tree branch so Dan could cast back down wind to two large browns. He managed to hook a beauty on the silver Dorothy. We went to shore to land it then I fished from shore for a while. The GoPro ran out of battery again. The wind was howling and fish were still rising. I missed several more browns on a Mrs Simpson over the next hour. Dan took his rod back from me and caught a rainbow with one cast. He had been watching it come out from a hiding place to feed for a while. My little fledgling fly fisherman is starting to learn.
So what were the trout rising for in the wind? Dan watched an adult damsel struggling on the surface of the water get eaten. There were lots of damsels flying around in the sun when it was calm. I used to try so hard to catch trout on adult damsel imitations in the past. I had decided that you had to figure out how to make them hover over the water so the trout could jump out to catch them. Normally damsels take refuge along shorelines when the weather is not so nice. Today the wind came up very quickly and the damsels were caught out. Being weak fliers, they were blown onto the water in numbers and trout around the lake feasted for a time. I learned something new this day, thanks to Dan.
So we paddled and fished our way back into the wind which was easing. I picked up a good brown on a ginger Mick then Dan finished with the best brown trout of the day on a grey ghost. That makes 80 patterns we have caught fish on in just over a year. We still have about 70 to go so bare with us.
