50 Fish Opening Day

Submitted by Derek Gregory 

 

Saturday October 1st  dawned bright and clear as our small contingent of eager fisherman readied ourselves for our first assault on the Ruakatiri River for the 2011-2012 fishing season.

 

The river was running at its summer flow, very low and crystal clear, although below the Erepiti Bridge the Erepiti Stream was dirty caused by a very large slip which coloured the water below the bridge.

 

The fishing in the morning was great with Dereck and Colin catching numerous fish above the Nolans bridge area and Peter and Barry having great success a little further up stream around the camping area.

 

There were no shortage of fisherman on the river with most accommodation up the Papuni Road taken, and in speaking to a few fisherman on the river they were all having reasonable success.

 

Around lunch time Colin and I ventured back to our accommodation in Dave Withers shearers quarters for a little lunch then we fished upstream towards the Erepiti Bridge with outstanding results.

 Colin latched onto a real hot pool and caught 13 fish from it, while I ventured a little further upstream to a  couple of nice deep runs and hooked a couple of monster fish, one of which would have given double figures a fright and the other even bigger, but no real reward as one spat the hook after a good 10 minute fight and the other

straightened the hook of my dropper.

 But bloody exciting stuff to say the least.

 

Around 3.30pm there was a prolific mayfly hatch and the fishing came on real strong for a good hour with fish rising regularly in most pools.

 By 6.30pm we had had a great day so returned back to the shearers quarters for a well earned beer and a good steak, and a catch up with Peter and Barry to see how the rest of their day had panned out.

 

They had huge success also although Barry did break his rod which was a little unfortunate.

 A change from the normal fishing stories that evening I went across the road to the woolshed where three pig hunters from Gisborne were staying. “Boots”, “Balls”, and “Brian”, say no more, real colourful old guys with great stories. They had caught one good pig on Saturday and speaking with them as we were leaving on Sunday they had caught another four smaller ones that morning.

 

Sunday was another fine and sunny day, so we ventured back to where we had fished the previous afternoon, only to find the water a little murkier than Saturday.  Colin landed another four fish while I only landed two more.  I fished that very deep run for over an hour trying to entice those big fish again but to no avail.

 

Peter and Barry fished around the Erepiti Reserve and caught 3 or 4 more before returning back up onto the areas they fished on the Papuni Road on Saturday catching another half a dozen.

 

All in all probably the best opening weekend for some time with 52 fish caught between us and many more lost.  The accommodation at the shearers quarters was excellent with a great hot shower to finish the day.

 

Our thanks go to Peter Frizzell who organised the trip this year.  Can’t wait for the next one, add my name to the list now!