burkefish

an interesting thing that seems to be happening in the lower reaches of the mak on low flows is that because the area has slumped in the quakes. salt water is a lot further upstream when the flow gets into the 30cum range. seems salmon when in the river don’t to sit in or mostly won’t travel trough saltwater which being heavier than fresh sits on…[Read more]

can report about 110,000 salmon smolt have been released this winter in north canterbury rivers. didn’t have as many ova this years about 46,000. but a bonus has been about 30,000 fry donated to f&g. some to go into the harper to boost salmon in coleridge as releasing smolt into the lake has not been working as those fish seek to head for the…[Read more]

can report about 110,000 salmon smolt have been released this winter in north canterbury rivers. didn’t have as many ova this years about 46,000. but a bonus has been about 30,000 fry donated to f&g. some to go into the harper to salmon in coleridge as releasing smolt into the lake has not been working as those fish seek to head for the sea.been a…[Read more]

the method i use is roughen the surface, spray with metallic auto repair paint, leave 24 hours, coat with nail polish -colour of choice ( ones with holographic bits in are good) then finally give a coat of dulux clear plastic- a can will spray 50+ spinners.

have used devons for trout, have got a lot of them collected over the years. will try some next season and see if pacific salmon take to them.

have had a report of a 17lb salmon this month by stewarts gully boat club.

there is to be more ova planting this weekend as is a sort of a club day with anyone invited. We will be meeting at Yauldhurst pub carpark for carpooling at 8 am. there will be a bbq lunch provided, you need to have warm clothing and gumboots. for anyone interested we well be loading our large alevinator with 30,000 eggs.

personally I had 1 fish up to 25th March, the got 6 in the next 12 days. Other anglers got a lot more and those fishing up river did really well. Know of one person who caught 7 in aday releasing them. The hatcheries had low returns this year with F&G having only 400,000 eggs. That is half the number they had last year the nz salmon anglers will…[Read more]

have seen and had reports of fresh salmon still arriving in the upper mak on their spawning run already a good number of redds around. the run has certainly been later than usual.

another point on the season . the early fish were not in the same condition as the later ones with the latter being much better. which seems like there was an improving food supply out there. also i have caught fish in april for the last 4seasons as follows–2011-1 2012-1,2013-2,2014-4, 2015-3.previous to that from 1990 to 2010 i had only 2…[Read more]

one of the reasons, if not the main one for small salmon this year is the quakes especially 2011 disrupted the main food supply (nz or stout sprats) this year have shown poor hatchery returns so far though fish are still arriving. there has been an absence of 4 year at sea fish. the good news is there have been good numbers of 2year at sea fish.…[Read more]

the problems with this salmon season are 1 it was late and there are still fish arriving. 2 very few fish survived the 2011 run because of the quakes. the good news is that there have been a lot of 2year at sea fish which according to niwi usually means a good number of 3year at sea fish the following season. good 1st spawning count on the rakaia…[Read more]

no not far away, was the first week of march last year. signs looking good after what starting to happen at other rivers this week.

shark slayer thats a great catch would get adrenaline going.

thanks to a great group of volunteers we were able to finclip 90,000 salmon smolt at montrose today.

the best time at river mouths for salmon is half tide out to half tide in. if that coincides with early morning or dusk so much the better.

that won’t stop them, some of the best days i have had have been in howling southerlys.

all the regulations are up for review in may this year . you can submit a proposal . it would need to pass in you local area be voted on by all areas and then accepted by the government to become universal. on the other hand the regions can tweet local regs to some degree. you could stand for the f&g council thats up for elction later on i think…[Read more]

was looked at in detail at the 1999 salmon forum and the logistics and costs involved ruled it out. will see if i can find the papers and give the exact reasons. one of the reasons was that it would hard to have volunteers policing 7 days a week up to 12-14 hours day. to counter that you would need to restrict the hours that you could fish.

the problem with your 10 fish a season is who is going to police it? the government regulates how many rangers each area has and 90% of them are volunteers. to have full time ones would mean at least tripling your licence fee. which would mean a loss of revenue as the fishery would become exclusive and there would less money to spend on upkeep.…[Read more]