Team Tuesday - Jeremy Poulters Opening Weekend

Opening day in Canterbury saw a real mixture of both weather and water levels / clarity. The further north you went, it seemed the more rain had fallen and the rivers were mostly fishable but high.

We found ourselves in a pocket of sunshine for the majority of the day, and water was clear enough for sight fishing. Andrew and I had fished this river on opening before, and found the fish numbers were on par with the previous years which is always pleasing to see.

As I write this, the weather forecast is sun today, rain tomorrow, sun the next day followed by the rain. Typical October weather! With these high river flows it's always important to get your fly down quickly.

Un-weigted or lightweight flies are a waste of time. We got the majority of our fish on Simons Uglys and when we used lighter weight patterns we used Loon's "Deep Soft Weight" to get the flies down to where the fish are.

To be honest - we found the pattern didn't matter so much, but getting the fly down to the right depth was the key to getting hookups.

Follow more of Jeremy's adventures here via his new guiding business, Fly Fish Canterbury