Was the right call - as the weather was fantastic, the river was at a good level to fish and we had a stretch to ourselves for the day + we got onto a few fish.
Was a late start, leaving mine at 8.30ish, then even later arrival due to the black spur being closed for tree work and the detour being via Yea. We hit Alexandra around 12, checked the river out at a few spots then settling in Thornton.
HBs were out as the river was flowing to fast for them, so i switched to a #2 gold vibrax and got the first fish to hand being a brown of approx 30cm that was quickly netted and released. Seb was on both the spin and fly rod and landed and dropped a few browns and rainbows on both set-ups
With the sun high we were expecting the fish to be shutting down soon. We came to a deep slow flowing pool on the back of a small riffle, i put a few casts in then changed my retrieve and felt the hit then weight. After a big of a slog then a fait run could see i had one of the released broods on my line. It was soon in the net and had really vibrant reds and was dropping eggs while it was being handled. Few quick pics and it was sent back.
After that, the fishing shut down. We took a break and waited for the sun to hit the treeline and bring on the evening surface activity. Unfortunately it never really came despite some decent insect activity for this time of year. I got a 2nd brood rainbow from the same pool that put on an aerial show and thru the hook on the 3rd jump. Seb worked the fly, but there was really nothing on apart from juvenile fish taking the very infrequent insect from the surface.
Good day out (still on the way home)
