Salmon Fishing Report 4 February 2022 – The Rakaia River Fires Up

By Tim Nicol

Salmon Fishing Report 4 February 2022. After hearing that the salmon were running in the Rakaia River we shot down on the trusty quad to the north side of the mouth. The recent “second” mouth had closed a few days prior – so there was only one mouth again. We fished the gut for an hour or so and saw one salmon was caught in the sea-side of the gut.

The sea was very dirty from a recent southerly but the river was running pretty clear causing an awesome contrast in brown/blue water.

Rakaia River Fish Kahawai

Mate Darren and I started off by catching a few Kahawai. It is always enjoyable catching kahawai and getting the feel of a fish on the line.

Rakaia River Fish Salmon

I hooked into a bit of silver! It inhaled the amazing baits silver/green ticer and you could see blood coming from its gills straight away… after a short but powerful battle I managed to tail it up the stones with rod in one hand and salmon in the other. It went 15.5lbs. Here is this week’s Salmon Fishing Report. Not there will also be a short video posted on this page within the next day or so.

Pretty buggered we left not soon after.

We saw about 4-5 caught that morning and heard of up to 15 caught in previous days. Great to hear and see.

The Waimakariri River on the other hand is 20+ degrees and very low. No fish around yet (I’m out there most days).

Salmon Fishing Report – Allan says,

As we mentioned last week, when you know the salmon are in the rivers, and the rivers are fishable, you have to drop everything and get out there. The salmon season is quite short. The runs can be stop-start and at other times the rivers can come down in flood. He who hesitates misses out.

The Rangitata, Rakaia, Waimakariri and Hurunui Rivers are all in spate (running high and discoloured) so ther won’t be any sea-run salmon fishing in Canterbury over Waitangi weekend. It will be at least a week before they are fishable again provided we get no more rain in the mountains.

An interesting aspect of this salmon season with the new 2-fish bag limit is the experience of Erik Vanderzwet. Erik caught two 16-pounders at the Rakaia River mouth on consecutive days at the end of January 2022 and decided to keep them as they were both good fish. As Erik then said, “Two days fishing and the sea run salmon season is over.” I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry about that! Either way, congratulations Erik, well done mate.

Allan Burgess.