Welcome to the September 2023 Blog its a great time of year with the day light increasing quickly giving us more time “in the light” after work and warmer days to enjoy being outside.
1st September kicked off the start of the 2023 White Baiting season and surprisingly this all started very quietly this year.
There’s no doubt everyone is living more and more busy lives so it does seem like its taking longer for us all to crank into gear and get out on the rivers.
A factor has also been some very late frosts which at times is keeping the temperatures down and there’s also been quite a low snow line on the Alps
The old timers say that if the snow line is too low the water is too cold and the bait wont run
Maybe this is just an old tale to keep more of us away from the river ! It does have some merit though
In the weekend we had 20 degrees in Canterbury so it was good to see from our Orari Camera plenty of people out trying their luck
I also visited the Ashburton Mouth which had a full carpark too
Reports have been quiet however its still early and with the temperatures trending upwards it wont be long before the river mouths are filled shoulder to shoulder
There have been common reports that there’s good numbers of Kahawai at the river mouths so this is promising!
Roll on the 1st October, we cant bloody wait !!!
I have been busy stocktaking my fishing gear, cleaning rods and reels, putting new line on, watching Youtube fishing videos and window shopping on the internet for new gear I “need”
The 1st October every year is my tradition that I really get excited for. Whatever day the 1st falls on each year is my one day a year where I dedicate my whole day to go fishing at my favourite spot. Doesn’t matter if this fish are on, or off its just so good to be out on the water.
I hope your just excited and already have your trip planned out to your favourite spot.
The season will be an interesting one as the famous Canterbury Nor West has returned after a couple year hiatus.
We have been in a La Niña phase which is dominated by Northerly flow bringing lots of moisture down from the tropics and smashing into the east coast of the South Island. La Niña has been great for the lowland rivers like Orari, Opihi & Ashburton as regular rain kept these rivers flowing at very healthy levels. Rivers like the Ashburton averaged around 20 cumecs nearly all season. The Alpine Rivers like Rangitata, Rakaia, Waimak, Hurunui and others have been stable but low compared to normal with the lack of rain feeding the headwaters.
With the start of the 2023 spring the Nor West didn’t take long to rear its head with the obvious signs we are now in El Niño. So we will see a drastic swing with the Alpine Rivers being full and likely dirty quite often with the lowland rivers getting to really low levels mostly due to abstraction. At times like this I have seen the Ashburton halve its flow day after day then the mouth closing by the weeks end.
I tend to fish the Ashburton quite hard during the Spring flows and have some excellent fishing but come late December when abstraction is running at 100% the river truly disappears from late December onwards.
So bring on the 1st October, we cant wait, well be out there on our favourite spot and cant wait to bump into you on the river !!
Cheers Brett
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