Time Waits for no Man or Woman

The 2022-2023 trout season was a blinder after the Covid no travel ban.  We had two trips to the South Island.    The first trip pre Xmas and the other late April.  Both trips provided fantastic dry fly fishing with all the usual Fly Shop patterns in our fly packs doing the damage.  Stand out flies:  Bushy's Emerger Rust #10, USA Cicada Black #14 .

At home fishing the Goulburn River was an eye opener.    We fished it every week except for our time in NZ.   We caught so many fish we had to replace the net and, yes, we released them all.   The numbers per trip were between 20 and 50 all on dry flies.  Quite amazing.

There is a good explanation for this staggering number of fish.   A massive volume  i.e. 8 tons estimated escapees from the fish farm during the flooding of the valley in Spring caused when Goulburn Murray Water released 38,000mg from Lake Eildon.    This created an out of bank flood  you would hope to be a once in a life time event.

The years ahead look good for this fishery as the fish will disperse over the catchment and many will breed.   It's a pity  many people kept large numbers well exceeding the daily bag limits.  Greed and with no thought for the future .  No wonder the planet is in so much  trouble .