34 today! Fishing the Canals…
On this day 34 years ago I was born.
I went to Fairlie for the weekend to visit some friends and fish the Tekapo canal. Kevin and I fished all day Saturday right into darkness. No fish. Kevin lost one on a prawn bait and I had one hit a black lure at night. We saw some fish everywhere we went so we always had a chance. Sometimes a big fish would come up and roll on the surface as if taking a dry, other times they would crash the surface, sometimes becoming airborne. These fish must have been hitting fry but we could not get a response from them. I decided to fish deep all day. I used a di7 line and various lures to get right down but I also covered any fish I saw move on top. Nothing seemed to work! The canals are a very unique fishery and I want another go. There are huge fish to be caught there which gain their weight from feeding on the abundant, easy pickings under the 2ks of salmon cages. We spent most of our time well away from the cages and these big fish were still present so they obviously move around. The biggest fish I saw was about 10lbs and Kevin saw on he reckoned to be over 15lbs. Well worth going back for!
Ronan..