Rakaia River

The Rakaia rises in the Southern Alps and crosses the Canterbury Plains to the sea south of Lake Ellesmere, 60 km from Christchurch. It is one of New Zealand's best salmon rivers, protected by a Water Conservation Order since 1988. Its quinnat salmon, as New Zealand calls chinook, run from November to March. It also holds sea-run brown trout, resident brown trout, and rainbows upriver. Below the Coleridge tailrace it is open to trout fishing all year.

The Rakaia is a big, braided, glacier-fed river on an unstable shingle bed. It usually carries some colour, especially during the spring melt, it can flood at any time of year, and it often changes course after a flood. Fish & Game's guide says salmon fishing is most productive when the flow drops below about 180 m³/s straight after a fresh. Salmon fish best in the lower river in December and January, at the mouth from mid January to mid March, and in the upper river from January to March. Spinning is the main method: a Zed spinner or a Colorado spoon fished along the bottom of pools, beside the main flow, on 7 to 10 kg line. In the surf at the mouth, fish a long rod with a ticer, a slice or a heavy Zed spinner, best when the sea is calm and clear. Try the gut mid-way through an incoming tide.

Sea-run brown trout feed on smelt at the mouth and lagoon from November to February, especially after a fresh when the river is coloured, and in the last hour of light on a warm day. Fish a Parson's Glory, a Hope's Silvery or a Yellow Rabbit in sizes 2 to 6 on a fast sinking line. The Rakaia is not a dry fly river, as it has few hatches. Resident trout are blind fished with a fly or spinner, and in the headwaters with heavily weighted nymphs. The best trout fishing is in the tributaries and the high country lakes. Earth Sciences New Zealand's Fighting Hill gauge in the gorge is live on this page.