Thread: Has anyone caught a salmon this season yet?

Forget about the expense get wet feet, smell the gorse & broom, trip on the river stones, believe me you wont need to have your weekly visit to your trick cyclist.

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

Expensive salmon

Makes my venison.... Still not cost worthy but that's not why we do it is it

Originally Posted by Mathias

Apart from @mikee comment about the Rakaia, I heard of one fisherman doing 20hrs in his jet boat for 3 salmon....so far.

Yeah 2 each total for the year is pretty poor for them, they virtually live on the river, (Whitebait at the mouth from Aug thru end november, then gorge for salmon December thru till end of season).

I remember when the limit was 4 per day and the fish were big, I can remember in early 90's when we were fishing at Waitaki, 6 of us in dads jet boat all caught our limits before 8am. So many fish in the boat we could not get up on plane. And before anyone goes "poos" nothing was wasted not even the frames.

[QUOTE=outdoorlad;786986]Expensive salmon[/QUOTE

My nephew has a weekend job ..just a few hours...gets paid has saved up for a sweet we rod and reel package, has to shop at the wharehouse for tackle as his passion is limited by his income!

As some one very clever teach a kid to fish he will never have money for drugs!

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

Expensive salmon

I guess with all hobbies they cost money but when you factor in the relaxation and therapy of being in the outdoors and enjoying your surroundings it works out cheap. It's about the sport and fun of doing it and all the yarns told about the one that got away

Originally Posted by mikee

Yeah 2 each total for the year is pretty poor for them, they virtually live on the river, (Whitebait at the mouth from Aug thru end november, then gorge for salmon December thru till end of season).

I remember when the limit was 4 per day and the fish were big, I can remember in early 90's when we were fishing at Waitaki, 6 of us in dads jet boat all caught our limits before 8am. So many fish in the boat we could not get up on plane. And before anyone goes "poos" nothing was wasted not even the frames.

They used to can them at the south camp then when the numbers dropped the canning stopped. Everyone was catching heaps and you could watch lines of them coming up the river porpoising through the salmon holes. How I wish those days would return

[QUOTE=stingray;787061]

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

Expensive salmon[/QUOTE

My nephew has a weekend job ..just a few hours...gets paid has saved up for a sweet we rod and reel package, has to shop at the wharehouse for tackle as his passion is limited by his income!

As some one very clever teach a kid to fish he will never have money for drugs!

Totally agree, get your kids keen on fishing and they will stay out of trouble

Originally Posted by 7mm Rem Mag

They used to can them at the south camp then when the numbers dropped the canning stopped. Everyone was catching heaps and you could watch lines of them coming up the river porpoising through the salmon holes. How I wish those days would return

Would hate to think how many we got canned. We used to stay at the south motor camp and also the one by the bridge when I was a kid most weekends from Start of March thru till the end of the season
We (my family, wives family, my cousins grand parents and uncles) caught a lot and I mean a lot of fish, looking back I kinda wonder now if we caught too many.
My best Salmon was 35lb and dads was 40lb 10oz

I’m cursed with Salmon about the same as @R93 is with Snapper. Got a trip coming up in March to make it 4 trips and no fish. One of those being Alaska so my first Salmon is going to be bloody expensive.

Originally Posted by Shootm

I’m cursed with Salmon about the same as @R93 is with Snapper. Got a trip coming up in March to make it 4 trips and no fish. One of those being Alaska so my first Salmon is going to be bloody expensive.

Went a long way to getting rid of my curse last year

Hopefully this weekend I do well on the snaps again.
Plenty were being caught here in Hoki the past few weeks, that's until the rivers flooded.

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I live on the Rangitata and theres bugger all going on here at the moment

Originally Posted by Tribrit

I live on the Rangitata and theres bugger all going on here at the moment

That's not good

There's a "Run" on, isle 7, at Count-Down....feilding...dont look very big tho

We've got a family fishing crib at the North side fishing camp. I read the Salmon 'book' while we were there. It's a ledger of Salmon caught in the camp from season to season.

Last few seasons seem to have been noticeable bad in terms of both quantity and quality of fish in the Waitaki. Mind you there are many other variables that may dismiss that claim. But going by the book, from memory, there were only about 40 odd fish weighed in at the camp last season with nothing much over 10 pound.
Then if you flick back 4-5 years and there were well over a hundred fish, many in the 20 pound range and 1 or 2 30+ pounders.

This all means squat really. But I definitely noticed a declining trend in both numbers and size of fish in recent years.

I'm yet to catch one of the buggers, would hate to add up the hours spent trying. I was told by an old timer to expect to spend 72 hours on the river before catching one.
I must be close to that!

Caught a number of trout over Christmas and even they seemed quite small. Majority of the fish were in the 3-4 pound arena. Mostly rainbows and the odd brown a bit bigger.

Plenty of Kahawai at the mouth to keep entertained though!



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I plan to go out next weekend so I'll keep everyone posted on how I get on, cheers for all the comments