Salmon (and trout) fishing, Twizel - Nov/Dec 2021

 

Part of our master plan for spending another summer in the South Island was to fish the Twizel canals again.  We felt that we didn't really get the measure of it when we were here in January 2021.  Besides, James was yet to catch 'the BIG one'!

Having the van made our three weeks in the area so much easier.  There are several freedom camping spots in the area and this made coming and going to our favourite fishing spots super easy.

We started out with a couple of nights at the top of the Tekapo canals.  We caught a couple of eating size salmon and some cute small trout, but not much as going on.  

But the views were worth it.

The skys in this area are always very photoworthy, with those ever present mountains in the background.

Not to mention the beautiful sun sets.

Always those rod tips in picture

On the day we left we enjoyed a wander up the canal from the 'magic carpet' finding a couple of quite large trout hanging in the shallows.  They were not to be tempted by anything we had to give though.

Upon arrival at the 'Fish Bowl' quite late on that same day James had caught his first 10lb trout on his first cast of a spinner!

We couldn't believe it, and were so excited we just threw it in the van and headed for the campsite beside the lake just down the road. We had  bathe in the lake and sat down to marvel at our good luck.

The next morning we rose early, arriving at the Fish Bowl by 6am.  Within about 45mins we had another three 10lb salmon.  We also watched another couple of guys catching the same stamp fish so decided there must have been an 'escape' from the cages and we were just super lucky to be there at the right time!

What to do with all this fish! Fortunately we had researched the community and discovered that there was a local smokehouse.  We phoned and arranged with John that we would drop three of the fish off to him that morning.  We had packed our vac pac machine in the van in anticipation of the wild food we intended to gather so we kept one fish to enjoy fresh.

We took a short interlude from fishing as we had managed to secure a housesit for five days.  More on this in the next post.

We headed for one of our favourite places to fish at the top of Ohau C. catching a couple of nice fish on bait.

Caught on bait as we were leaving

Nomnom

Caught on a spinner

We combined fishing some of our favourite spots with exploring some new ones.

Another 10lb

13lb

Nice trout, catch and release

And just when you think it can't get any better .... well, you really do catch the big one!

We really couldn't believe our luck.  We felt that we had enough salmon (to sink a battleship!) and had come here this morning to try and get catch a trophy trout.  We phoned John at Rata Smokehouse again and he agreed to hot smoke this baby in time for us to collect before leaving for Dunedin in a few days.  We took it straight into town.

We went straight back to the same spot, still looking for that big trout, only to catch another salmon, almost immediately.  We were happy to be able to gift this one to a guy who had been fishing since before sun up and caught nothing.  He was stoked and very grateful. He gave us some Huhu grubs to try as bait, which we had no luck with.

On our last day of fishing, the only thing we had not yet conquered was that trophy trout!  A new strategey was employed with great success.  These were all caught on the same morning in the same spot, the heaviest being around 10lb.  All but one released to live it's best life.

 

When it came time to take a break from fishing we headed on a day trip to Mt Cook.  The scenery was spectacular.

The alpine flora was equally as engaging.

Lucky for us, the lupins were in flower

The only thing left to do before we headed south was to collect our smoked fish from the smokehouse.

Most of this was given away to friends and family
to enjoy at their Christmas celebrations.

So Twizel, we finally conquered you.  We will be back!