Tips For Stalking Lake Wanaka Trout : Elevation

Stalking trout along the shoreline of our Southern lakes is a real buzz , it's very visual fly fishing and some days you may see upwards of 20 plus fish cruising their beat in search of bullies, dragon fly nymphs. damsels and snails along the stony bottoms and weedy edges. Some days the conditions can start out perfect, no cloud or wind to speak of but as the day unfolds things can quickly change ! Our Southern Lakes are well known for having high cloud build up around the surrounding mountains only to then have the dreaded NW come roaring in and make spotting fish tough !

When conditions turn nasty and spotting trout becomes impossible, either due to surface disturbance from the wind and or high cloud that's blocking out the sun light , hunt out an elevated rocky out crop or bank from which to sit and scan the surrounding lake edges. The elevation will help cut out the glare caused through low light and will also help with the lake surface chop, a stretch of water that was seemingly impossible to see into and spot fish 5 minutes earlier has now come to life with cruising trout!

A super well conditioned Southern Lakes brown trout that made it to the net. Lake Wanaka's brown trout have been in superb condition so far which bodes well for the coming months ahead.