Jim rang me on Sunday and said one of the fish he had hooked earlier in the day at the Wairau Bar was apparently a salmon. There were people on the bank above him that mentioned it to him. The fish got away. We made a plan to have a fish the next day.
I dreamt about fishing that night – we were fishing at the Bar, and I hooked a fish which I thought was a salmon at the time, but when it jumped, it turned out to be a marlin. I woke up soon after.
The fishing was fairly slow on Monday, but I managed to take a kahawai home, while Jim landed two kahawai. No salmon, but I kept thinking we might have one hooked whenever there was a fish on the end of our lines. There had been a trawler operating in Cloudy Bay, and that probably had something to do with the lack of action.
I have heard of salmon being landed in the Wairau Diversion and the Wairau Bar lately, but I’m yet to see one myself this year. Tony Orman reports in the April NZ Fishing News magazine that there have been quite a few caught in various parts of the Wairau River.
Jim and I fished at the Bar again on Thursday and took a kahawai home each. Many of the strikes didn’t hook the fish as easily as they seemed to in the past. I changed to a smaller lure like I normally use before I landed my fish. I had been using a slightly heavier lure to help cast into the wind.
Jim told me he caught a couple of kahawai on Friday, and then four on Saturday. I think the trawler has vacated the bay, which must always be better for the recreational fisher.