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TROUT FISHING WITH MAURICE RODWAY - Weekly Column: 03-November-00
 Southland, New Zealand

Clouds

With the possible exception of professional meteorologists, fishermen (and women) and farmers know more about clouds than anyone else does.  This is because clouds tell a story about the weather to come and the weather affects their lives and loves.

The clouds that foretell a westerly blow are no more than thin wisps high in the heavens.  They come with the sun and the hot wind that is squeezed out of the gap between the sky and the mountains. While sculptured gracefully they depress the fly angler's hope. When they lie with humped backs in the west, trout nose under logs. The temperature may be rising but the barometer is falling and there is no more reliable indicator of the lack of fishing fortunes. The happy fish symbols on fishing calendars we buy in the hope of filling our bags with fish cannot compete with the stories in these clouds.

But all farmers and fishers know, that the weather will change after the wind has rushed out of the west. The hot changes to a cool, sometimes with shards of ice, but always the  towering clouds, furniture of the Gods, bring fine weather in their footsteps. This is the weather of the mayfly that restores hope to fly anglers.    On the coast the cold wind makes lambs shiver but inland the temperature rises with the barometer and trout.

Occasionally in the South the weather gets a little lost and the regiment of predictable patterns become waylaid. Just like this last week. The westerly wind blew and we expected a change but it turned and blew from the east. Cold in the morning, so that young cricketers were pleased to run hard for a ball speeding towards the boundary, just to keep warm. But then the wind came from the north east and was hot. Finally it cooled and blew anglers from the river. Trout put their noses down too.

In between times there was good fishing.



Labour weekend was one of the best for years. Mavora campers were sun burnt, rather than snowed out. The upper Oreti sparkled with soft winds blowing upstream . The Mataura, slow to clear after one of the wetter Octobers we have had for a while, came right for fishing in patches. However the east wind kept most of its trout in the river, rather than out on its bank.

The meteorologists predicted that rain would wash out fishing on Sunday but it was fine and warm in many places. The clouds in the morning were more like a sofa with weary springs than an ornately carved armchair, and so the weather was a little hard to predict for us all. 

Maurice Rodway
Southland, New Zealand                           E-mail: mrodway@southlandfishgame.co.nz

Article © 2000 Maurice Rodway, All Rights Reserved.

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