Wednesday 5 July 2017

A Promising Day

DATE: 4th July 2017

Air Temp: 26’C - 30’C

Water Temp: 13’C - 16’C
Water Height: +.8m
Number of Rods: 16
Number of fish Caught: 5
Biggest fish: 23lbs John Shaw
No 30+: 0 
No 20-29lbs: 4
No 8-19lbs: 1
Grilse: 0
Weather: 
Another very bright day, very little wind and very little cloud cover. Extremely hot!
Managers Comments: 
A much more promising day on the river the today, the guests game back reporting plenty of action and signs of fish head and tailing. 

Simon with a 20lber 


Interestingly everyone seemed to have all their action in the first hour or so of the morning, in fact, Gordon, John, Brendan, Pat & Simon all hooked fish immediately after arriving at the pool. I think that, perhaps with the low morning sun the fish were keen and active. By lunch temperatures had reached 30’C clouds had burnt off and the wind had dropped, perhaps putting the fish down again. 
Today was extremely promising in that the fish were all of decent size. Bar the one 10lber from John (still a fantastic fish), every other fish hooked or landed was over 20lbs… Phenomenal for a days salmon fishing, but I do think that this means we have got the start of the run coming into the river, as typically on the Yokanga, bigger fish come as the forefront of the run. This is a relief as I was slightly worried we weren't going to get that main head of the big fish run. But it would seem it has begun. Gremikha again had a good day.
Gordon was fishing in beach yesterday morning, early on he managed to hook up with what was clearly a good fish. The fish did three/four 100m runs in to the backing and spent quite a lot of time on the opposite bank to Gordon. Most of you will know that in this height of water in Beach, that is an extremely long way away. Eventually Gordon managed to get the fish under control on his bank. The fish jumped and they got a good look at it. The heartbreaking end to the story is that the fish managed to shake the hook inches from the net as it did one last roll. Gordon's guide who has seen many enormous fish and had several good views of this one said, “this is 20kg fish”. Gordon is an exceptional and very experienced angler himself, and has outrageous numbers of big fish to his name already, but did say nothing could quite compare to this fight. A sad ending to an exciting story. Nevertheless, as Gordon said, he had a good fight and really all he was missing was an exact weight and the photo.
Brendan with his PB 22lbs
John S, also sadly had an early hook up with a decent fish. In fact first cast of the morning on Heron Rock provided the hook up. Sadly this was another escaper, fortunately John managed a 23lber in Lyliok shortly after. 
All in all, a much more promising day, signs of fish arriving. We lost a fair few fish today and had plenty more pulls and tugs. Lets hope we can lose this heat and get some cloud cover for the rest of the week.


Toby Burrell