Today was a father and daughter day. Alexi caught several trout on a Mepp's Black Fury #2 spinner. I caught trout on a cone head black woolly bugger, cone head krystal brown woolly bugger, bead head mop fly and a cone head brown woolly bugger. It was done in a lake that was all but drained. Today it was just the Rangitaiki river with lots of mud/weed flats exposed to the elements.
So Alexi got back recently from her European tour. She has not been fishing with me for a very long time; it could be close to 10 years. She was keen to join when I told her how excited I was to see Lake Aniwhenua. I was there with Dan a couple of weeks ago and we had an awesome day. You can read about our adventure here. Since then they have lowered the lake by 2 metres for weed control. Dan saw it last Saturday when I was at Matahina. It was a low as it could possibly get; it was simply a river channel. Today it was somewhat higher but there were only two river channels at the top of where the lake usually starts.
Alexi was casting a Mepp's Black Fury #2 spinner. She had to pretty much learn how to do it all again; it had been so long. We floated down and I was blown away by how many fish I spotted in the shallow waters. We probably made it more than halfway down the lake before I put my fly rod together. We were in full view of the dam. Alexi got a nice brown after missing a bunch of fish.
We got back up to where two channels converged. The whole lake/river was constricted and the water was moving fast. It was shallow on the fast side with lots of eddies formed by clumps of sand with weed attached. We took turns; one on the spinner, one on the fly then repeat the process. We landed a bunch and took four for the smoker. Alexi had an awesome time but had enough. Just as well because it took us a long time to get back up through the fast water.
I convinced Dan to take half a day off and join me there tomorrow afternoon before they fill the lake up again. Watch this space... What flies should I select for tomorrow? There will be a lot of down and across lure fishing me thinks. There will also be some nymphing done as all of the trout I filleted had bloodworms in their bellies. This is going to be good.
