MHF FISHING REPORT
Yellowbelly: The high-water levels have made fishing tricky when targeting yellowbelly. The new ground has spread the fish far and wide. Although many anglers are finding the lake tough, some anglers have cracked the code in catching consistent fish during a rather difficult time. Many anglers are generally used to fishing trees at this time of year as the yellas normally stack up thick amongst them as the water line recedes. This is not the case this year, the fish are staying high on the banks in amongst the new covered structure, to target these fish trolling lures such as Oar-Gees, Predatek and the RMG Poltergeists have found anglers consistently catching decent numbers, with darker colors and frog patterns finding the most success.
Redfin: As many fishermen have experienced by now the lake is holding a large proportion of tiny redfin stealing bait and taking lures. Although most people might find this annoying the large amounts of feed has enabled some redfin to reach larger size with reports of redfin reaching a whopping 52cm caught in the Delatite arm of the lake. Targeting these bigger fish will be the same as many other years, finding trees in water from 4-12m of depth holding bait will put you in great contention for catching larger redfin. Fishing aggressive lures such as Zerek fish traps, Samaki Thumper tails and jackal TN60s are a key factor in success as they “match the hatch” of the small baitfish that the bigger Redfin are gorging on currently.
Murray Cod: High water levels, abundance of bait and boat traffic are the three major factors that are contributing to a rather tough time when chasing that elusive meter fish. That’s not to say it’s impossible but matching the hatch currently is very important. Fishing when the least number of boats are on the water, early mornings, late afternoons and into the night are prime time for targeting cod. Lures such as Magdrafts, Jackall Gantias, Ganterals and Biwaa submissions are key to imitate the bait that is creeping around the shallows in large proportions.
Trout: Now that the rivers have receded to a now manageable level fishing has been exceptional. Not only have there been large numbers of fish being caught on both fly and spin, the condition in which the fish are in is the best they have been in years. Many keen spin anglers are using lures such as Rapalas in sizes F3, F5 and F7 along side the old faithful blue-fox spinners in sizes 1 and 2 have proven themselves as the summer favorites for trout. Fly anglers choice of fly will vary depending on which river you are fishing but a few baseline flies that will catch you fish no matter where you are flies such as the Royal wolf, Para-Improved humpy - Green and the X-Stimulator are fantastic flies to catch you fish no matter where u are in the high country.
