Fly fishing New Zealand’s remote trout streams can be a rewarding experience and not just for the fishing alone. The magic of getting into these remote places and the solitude they offer is truly awesome – at least when the weather is good.
I recently took a trip into one of these places – a long, rough 4WD and then a considerable walk gave us the access. The weather was perfect blue skies and hot temperatures. Our initial fly selection was a black blow fly and proved very successful in fooling the trout. Late morning gave us the sound of Cicada’s and so we switched and continued with our success.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions Green Cicada
Due to the nature of this small stream of the 12 trout hooked we only managed to get 5 to the bank, all the rest were long line release – pretty happy with that.
I had the pleasure of using a new gadget on this trip. Fly fisherman fall into two categories, the gadget freak and the guy’s that have jack shit but still catch all the trout. This gadget is not for catching trout but for making life easier at the beginning or end of the day or whenever you are back at your vehicle. The C&F Design Magnetic Rod Holder is great, set your rod up and clip it into the rod holder (I place mine on the front of my truck so I don’t forget the rods are there and drive away dragging them down the road) and then rig whatever you need to start your day with no worries of been blown over, stood on, trapped in a door or the myriad of other ways you can damage a fly fishing rod around a vehicle and trust me I know many of them! It certainly makes life easier.
The weather has started to look like serious summer now and the week ahead has two big highs merging and is looking fine with light winds all week apart from 2moro where we may get a small amount of rain. This should allow the terrestrial action to come on and we might really start to see the emergence of the Ciacada. There should be some excellent fly fishing coming up.
Here are some recent photos from a trip.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - 7.5 lb brown trout
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Wee Rainbow trout, great locations
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Old 8.5 lb brown trout
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Wee Rainbow trout, Great locations
I’m off this evening to hit the evening sedge session on the mighty Clutha River’s Deans Bank, its a very warm afternoon and with luck we will see some excellent sedge action – will let you know how its goes.
I have just finished a 4 day Safari fly fishing trip that saw us fishing in some quite remote areas and dealing with some thunderstorm type of weather. We got some nice rainbow and brown trout with a 8.5 lbs brown being the largest.
As soon as I returned for that trip I packed the family up and are doing our annual camping trip which is always fun with a young family. I had the pleasure yesterday of setting up one of my friends kids who (are camping with us) on a bubble and fly set up and seeing him hook into is very first trout. He’s off again today with Dad fishing around the lake edge with a Cicada set off the bubble and he has certainly caught the fishing bug – wont be long until he ditches the spinning rod and starts fly fishing.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - First fish on a fly
Good things is the weather has started (keep your fingers crossed) to really warm up although there has been the odd thunderstorm around the area which has seen some big spikes in the water flow on rivers that have had the deluges hit the upper catchments but as fast have they have spiked they have also dropped back again. It sure makes you think about not getting into gorgy areas in that type of weather!
As you have no doubt figured out the Cicadas are showing up now with the hotter weather and are firmly part of the trouts diet now. I am pretty much on the road doing Safari trips thru most of Feb so I am sure we will get a bunch of opportunities to hit some great dry fly fishing.
I have some space available in March and April so if your are thinking about a multi day guided fly fishing trip – drop me a line as the fishing in March and April will be excellent with the trout in great nick.
Drove bloody miles today in the search for some good fly fishable water from Queenstown New Zealand today after the last week of foul weather that has made many rivers in the region very full and dirty. The only clean water for the last couple of days has been inundated with tribes of anglers so it was time to really hit the road and have a good search around. Most of the rivers I drove past today were high and still discolored but should be well fishable but still full over the next 24 hrs to 48 hrs as a good high ridges in.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Nice Brown trout
It payed dividends doing the miles as we did find some good clean-ish water, well clean enough that I could do a fair amount of spotting and mix it up with some blind fishing. As the water was high and still slightly discolored I choose to rig up with a very special pattern that gets fished like a nymph – it proved deadly and soon I had a happy client with a fish to the bank. By the end of the day (still fishing special rig x) we had 4 to the bank and dropped 2, one of which was a very solid fish that went upstream like a freight train about 150m and took us well into the backing before steaming under a bank with no intention of coming out and thats the way it stayed bemused looking angler and one big fish gone! We missed about 4 or so to boot so all in all considering the water conditions a pretty bloody good day out.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Great condition rainbow trout
Sometimes it pays to get up early and be prepared to drive f#@king miles.
Looks like we should be in for some settled weather over the next few days to a week and I am a wee bit excited as I have heard the odd bit of Cicada action in the 2 five minute periods when it has warmed up – all it needs now is a couple of hot days and they should be under way.
I am about to start a series of multi day safari fly fishing trips so will be all over the shop around the lower 1/3 of New Zealand’s South Island. No doubt we will find some good weather, rainbow trout smashing cicadas, mouse eating big brown trout and who knows what else to pit our skills against.
Well my last post showed what a ripping week my client had fly fishing to some big South Island New Zealand trout and those that looked closely at some of the photos may have been able to tell there wasn’t a whole lot of sunshine and warm weather – generally it was bloody windy, cool and wet.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Good rainbow trout
That trend has continued since with front after front hammering the lower South Island and would you believe yesterday we woke to snow to quite low levels. It looked like it was the start of the heli skiing season again. Rivers have been up and down in level and some have had some quick bursts of brown water flow thru them but they clear quickly – especially as it cold up high still. The lakes are all very high – just below first flood warning level and things might get interesting if we do get some warm, wet storms now.
Terrestrial action has remained fairly quiet as it’s not yet got really warm and only the odd fish have succumbed to surface presentations. 99% of the fish we have caught have been sighted and caught on nymphs.
I have noticed there has been a switch away from the mayfly nymps being so predominant as they were early in the season and there is a lot more caddis for trout tucker on the rocks now.
So the lesson in this is keep your layers available, find your fish and be prepared to go deep to catch them.
Oh and lets all hope summer decides to arrive sometime soon!
My client and friend flew into Queenstown from Japan for his 8th guided trip fly fishing with me in the lower South Island of New Zealand 2 days ago and he has already landed some great trout.
I don’t speak much Japanese and he doesn’t speak much English so over the years we have developed a system of communication that allows me to guide him successfully and him to catch some superb trout. You see it’s all about teamwork – a guide and a client is a team going out to catch big New Zealand trout on fly fishing gear. If you don’t work as a team it’s never so good but at the end of the day it’s usually down to the guy with the stick in hand doing it right.
The other thing is you need to fish hard, and this guy does on his eight days with me – I work him like a dog and he loves it. He is into learning new things to help him improve all or any aspect of his fly fishing to get more big trout to the bank.
Check out the picture below of a 10.25lb trout he caught yesterday. This is not the biggest trout he has caught on the trip so far but this trout was in the most amazing condition – short in length for its weight.
10.25lb trophy New Zealand Brown Trout
I’m not sure we will be able to beat the 11.75lb brown he caught later in the day but we will sure give a good nudge over the next few days.
Back from a overnight fly fishing trip based from Lumsden in Southland New Zealand with big smiles on both my face and my client’s. We left Queenstown with weather reports indicating 2 days of extremely strong winds followed by heavy rain on the afternoon of the 2nd day.
Wind the curse and bane of fly fishing. If you have good casting technique and can double haul well you can fish into some pretty strong wind and still turn over the fly but when the wind is 120kph and gusting to 160kph most anglers will choose to wait the weather out. Not having this luxury I decided small streams off the main wind direction were the way forward and both days proved very successful with some great sight fishing using both dry flies and nymphs.
Great Southern NZ brown trout
Day one saw 7 healthy trout to the bank, the largest being 7lbs and we missed another 3 or 4 by pulling the dry fly out of the open mouth of the fish – a bit early on the set. Most of these were downstream takes and can be much harder due to the extra amount of time required to wait before setting the hook – you have to wait until the trout has turned back upstream!
Buttery New Zealand Brown Trout
Day two put us on a mountain stream with gale force winds knocking trees down in the next valley over and thunder pealing lower down the valley making us be very wary of becoming lightening conductors – luckily the lightening was far enough away we never saw any flashes and could continue fishing for the whole day. We had managed to get the winds on our back due to the way the river turns around a corner and later when the rain arrived the wind dropped right away and of course the sandflies appeared as if by magic.
Fat New Zealand Rainbow
It was one of those absoultely fantastic days where the fish seriously on. We lost count after we had 20 to the bank, mostly rainbows between 3 and 4 lbs but the highlight was catching 4 brown trout that were in amazing condition as they had been eating mice. Easy to tell when they are so chunky for their length and have the classic red arse – the trade mark of the mouse eating trout. The last trout of the day a brownie resisted all attempts with more regular nymph and dry fly patterns but when we presented it large worm fly pattern it shot upstream (I thought spooked) about 6 feet and down went the indicator and a great battle ensued to land a very fat 7lb trout. Just goes to show that as this fish had been eating mice small food morsels were not going to be enough but a big one did the trick. A woolly bugger fished as a nymph would have probably done the trick too.
Mouse eating New Zealand brown trout
The rainfall yesterday has seen another good fresh through all the rivers which are now dropping back and there will be some good fishing in the lead up to Xmas. There is another front lining up the bottom of the South Island but after it passes a high is ridging in early next week for a couple of days before the next fronts arrive later in the week. Looks like Xmas might be wet down here.
The last week in Southern New Zealand has seen quite a change in the rivers with the arrival of some wet storms instead of the dry windy ones we have seen over the last 2 months. The rivers have pretty much all come back up to much more normal spring size with the additional flows of water coming from the mountains. The fist series of storms were warm to high elevations and created some good size spates. The next lot of storms to come through were colder at elevation – in fact it snowed up high and the spates were not so big but keep the river volume high.
Many of the rivers have felt the impact with discoloration especially lower on the systems. The upper parts of most system have remained sight fishable but it has been much harder work finding the trout due to the extra volume of water. Generally the trout have been sitting in the same places but now that means they are down much deeper and really heavy nymphing gear is needed to get to them. We have been swinging streamers with some success with some big brown trout hammering the woolly bugger like a freight trains and putting up tremendous fights.
The weather looks like we will see another fairly disgruntled week with some wet storms again towards the end of the week. Lake Wakatipu has gone from being unusually low for the time of the year to just below the first flood warning criteria – watch this space over the next few weeks!
I think its a great thing that we have finally seen some good run off and it will freshen everything up and certainly give the fish some respite going into the busy Xmas and New Year period.
Certain isolated areas down here have mice populations going nuts and the result is the fish in these areas is to be seen to be believed. Most fish even in the areas where there are no mice are in very healthy order due to the easy spring we have had and the lack of big water knocking the trout around and will provide some excellent quarry over the next few months.
I have just got back from a multi day guided fly fishing tripsouth of Queenstown. We were based in my homestay and fished Southland for 5 days. My fishing clients went away happy after their first trip to the Southland area. We mainly fished brown trout waters and on one day managed to hook and land a 10lb brown trout in great nick.
Big Brown smack on 10lbs
Our successful fly choice was usually para adams or my emerger pattern with the odd brownie taking a blow fly off the surface or a heavy tungsten mayfly nymph down deep.
Big 10lbs brownie
Big 10 lb brown trout
Most of the the other brown trout we landed ranged from 5 – 7 lbs and were also in great condition which continues to show how well the spring has been allowing the trout to put on condition not being knocked around by the typical flooding we usually get. It certainly looks as though there will be some amazing conditioned fish by mid summer!
Great Condition Brown Trout
We hit one day on a mostly rainbow fishery on the edge of Fiordland and had an exceptional day hooking over 20 rainbow trout and landing about 16 of them and also missed a few chances with missed strikes. These rainbows were all in fantastic nick and were not fussy – in fact you could throw anything at them and it was good – about 50% took terrestrial and 50% subsurface.
Chunky monkey
I also noticed several mice hopping around the bank in this area and judging by the condition of the rainbows and coloration it certainly looks as tho that has been part of the recent diet for these trout.
Have you been eating mice?
All the rivers are low but not too low as the snow continues to melt off the mountains but this week looks like we may start to see some good precip with some wetter looking storms building up.
May fly are still hatching in place mid afternoon. Caddis are too be found on the rocks and the terrestrial action will continue to build especially as the weather starts to warm up over the next 3 months.
The brown beetle are out in force in the evenings so if you get a chance to be on a river a dusk that will be a good choice to go to.
The wind has still been the main issue to beat but all the rivers have been fishing very well in the Southland and Otago region with low to normal flows for this time of year. Brown beetle are out and about as well as the green beetles. Good mayfly hatches in the mid afternoon. Its all good and its all go. We have been spotting and catching good trout feeding on emergers in riffle waters and my clients have been having a ball regardless of the wind – see some tips in my previous posts.
Happy days - brown trout
I am back to Queenstown 2 moro for 2 days before my next clients arrive and will have a chance to catch up with my family before my next multi day trip based from Lunsden, Southland. The weather is looking terrific next week with a big high ridging in over the lower South Island, the first in quite a while. We will get to target some big New Zealand trout and will look to get into a Fiordland fishery for a day or maybe even an overnight mission. May a chance to have a crack at fishing a mouse pattern after dark for the big brown and rainbow trout cruising the shoreline whacking mice as they swim.
The windy weather continues here in Southland New Zealand but the smart fly fisherman has been able to juggle the wind by going to the right places to get out of it or just has the skills to deal with and succeed in catching NZ trout in howling gales.
One fine and very rare still day allowed for some spectacular sight fishing and resulted in 6 trout to the bank on a afternoon excursion of a few hours – most of the trout were caught using my emerger pattern again but one nice back water fish came to the surface and sucked in a #16 Dad’s Fav.
A small rain fall came thru yesterday afternoon and most of the rivers have had some lifting occur but have generally remained clean. Snow melt from the warm winds over the last week has also seen fluctuations in river flows as it has been coming down thru the systems.
I am still in Southland but will be return to Queenstown over the weekend before the next trip away.
Another week of moderate to strong westerly winds in Southland ended yesterday with a front coming thru and giving Fiordland a good dousing of rain but only a small amount of precip got east of the divide. As the front went thru the wind dropped away for the first time in a week and yesterday, Saturday afternoon saw some good light wind conditions for fly fishing. Sunday (today) has dawned a nice day with light NW winds and high upper level cloud around but I am sure the weekend warrior will be enjoying the calm ish conditions to hit the rivers as they are all generally running low and clear still. The forecast for the next week looks fairly similar to last week with more wind around to play havoc with the fly anglers.
Hooked Up
Many fly anglers get quite annoyed with wind and understandably, it seems to be the bane of most fisherman with a fly rod in hand. There are some things you can do to counter it and give you some good fly fishing. Learn how to double haul effectively and make sure your back cast angle is very high – shorten your stroke to help this. Another type of cast is the side cast keeping every thing super low and staying underneath the worst of the wind – 3 to 4 feet above the water – ever notice there is less wind at ground level – same thing over water. Use a stiff fast action rod like the new Scott S4. Use leaders and flies that you can still turn over. Find areas that are off the main wind angle or even better work with the wind. Approach things a bit differently – if the wind is really ripping the surface of the water it can be so disturbed it may be possible to get upstream of a fish or likely area – make your cast across the wind or downstream into the lane you need the flies to be, then trying to be as stealthy as possible walk down stream (if necessary) mending as required to keep your flies and line where you want them to be. This will often result in hook ups on gale force days.
Earlier this week on one of the extremely windy days I popped down to the river local river (I am still in Southland but will be going back and forth between Queenstown, Otago and Lumsden, Southland next week) for a wee look and a test of my skills in these conditions. I soon found a nice bit of water with fish feeding happily. I had found a place where some willow trees were blocking some of the gale (but not much) and rigged up with a double rig – heavy tungsten beaded top fly and my special home tie emerger pattern as the dropper. 1st hook up resulted in a brown trout on a torpedo run straight into willows – I dug in hard but bang he broke me off. Oh well – up to the next fish more in the open and this time I had to really work to lay the line and flies out using the double haul – bang a good 4.5 lbs brown trout to the bank. Next fish, I went for a different approach and decided to stand up stream and cast across and down laying some mends in and letting the flies drift thru the fishes lie — bang the emerger pattern again and a nice 5lb brown trout. I took the same approach for the next fish, again the emerger and this time a bigger brown trout of around 7lbs fought hard was landed and released to fight hard again another day.
In approximately 1 hr I had hooked 4 and landed 3 good fish on a day that had wind clocked around 70kph and gusting higher still by using the top 6 inches to employ the right tactics!
I have a friend who I fish with on occasion. Those occasions are usually when it’s blowing it arse off, he will ring me up and say “lets go, no other bastard will be out there” and he’s always right and we always have some good fun!
Book a guided expedition with me and I will show you what is possible to catch some good trout even in adverse wind conditions although I will always try to get us out of the wind if at all possible.
It’s not often I actually kill a trout but yesterday we had an opportunity to show a nice 4.5 lb jack fish the priest. After filleting (amazing color red, orange flesh) the trout I had a poke around in the stomach and found a good amount of the usual caddis and mayfly nymphs, a number of blow flies and best of all green beetles. These will be around now thru until Xmas and the trout love them. There are some reasonable mayfly hatches occurring in the afternoons.
The rivers are all running at low levels for this time of year in most of Southland and are very clean. It’s certainly quite unusual for this time of year for them to be so low. The snow is holding well in the mountains still so when we do end up getting some warmer, wet weather we will get some good flushes – its just a matter of when.
The fishing has been excellent with very good condition brown trout being caught and in the rainbow waters still finding trout that have yet to spawn.
I am based down in Lumsden, Southland at present and ducking and diving around the wind to get some excellent fishing and have a couple of trips coming up that might see us nudging into Fiordland.
Stay tuned in for more info coming and remember to book your fly fishing expedition so you can make sure you have your time and guide secured.
Half day fly fishing trips can be great fun for clients to get a wee taste of what fly fishing is all about near Queenstown and offers a chance for fly fishing anglers to pick up a few tips they can take with them on their travels in the South Island of New Zealand.
My last days guiding was just like this – showing a client some great water and improving his general casting technique and also some of the fine arts of successful nymph fishing tactics as this was not something he had done much of.
Get down to where the fish are feeding – it’s no point having the nymphs above where the trout are feeding in the water column. Sometimes they will lift and take it but more often than not they won’t.
To add quick weight to get that nymph deeper I often use a tungsten bead head that is threaded onto the tippet and then slides along the tippet and down to the hook eye – free running. This is especially good when you do not want to use a double nymph rig for certain reasons.
Sometimes the area you are in has other attributes than just the fishing and this trip was one of those as we had a close encounter with a NZ Falcon. I spotted a nesting Falcon and warned my client that a dive bomb run was likely and if or when it occurred to keep the rods raised above our heads in a vertical manner. Sure enough the New Zealand Falcon buzzed us twice but stayed clear due to the rods. At this point I decided to see if I could do something to film an attack and promptly gave my rod to the client and asked him to stay put. I got the cam running and walked ahead about 10 meters and sure enough in came Mr Falcon – he swooped past and rolled up behind me lining me up and came straight at my head on his attack run with no fear of the rod in its way – whack he got me – bloody brilliant. My instinct to trust the sturdiness of my fishing hat was right but don’t try this at home!
All the rivers around the Southern Lakes, Queenstown, Southland and Otago are fishing well at present although the usual Spring weather is making life interesting with some big winds around. and some rivers getting snow melt in the afternoons.
I had some friends hit a Fiordland stream that I gave the direction on how best to approach and they had a very successful trip landing some nice rainbows and browns all in super fat nick – the boys thought there might have been some mouse action going on to create these super fat hogs although they never kept one to find out for sure – but if so bodes well for some big fish over the summer.
Sometimes getting into the backcountry fisheries in New Zealand can be an arduous experience unless you can afford a helicopter to take away the hard yards but other times it can be as easy as driving to the end of the road and going for a wander up a stunning NZ stream. This is especially so in many areas of the South Island and my theory is get out the door early to make sure you have the water you want before somebody else snags it.
Nice NZ back country brown trout
The other day the weather forecast was terrible with 120 kph winds forecast (accurate too) and heavy rain falls. As wind is the bane of most fly fisherman I chose to do something a little unusual and instead of running away from the weather I decided that it was in our best interests to have a successful day to head straight towards it. My theory being that we could get under the leading edge of the front and beat the wind knowing full well that we would get rained and face a rising river – better than hurricane!
It turned out to be the right call an we got out of the wind, got rained on but spotted some good fish and better still my client got 3 to the bank and missed a couple to boot – not bad for a 1/2 day guided trip.
We had a good day out on the opening of the New Zealand back country rivers although I chose to guide my clients lowland and not to get messed up in the frenetic rush.
We chose to hit the Oreti in the morning and had some good hook ups but all resulted in lost fish for one reason or another – have to remember to let them run when they really want to! It was a grey day and the wind came up so we decided to find some shelter for a couple of hours and ended up on the upper Mataura and out of the wind.
Good condition Brown trout caught with emerger
Once again a few hook ups but this time we managed to hang on to one and get it to the bank – a lovely 4lbs brown trout and a happy happy client!
Oreti has been in excellent nick with fish mostly feeding freely on mayfly nymphs and taking well presented flies.
Upper Mataura is slightly high and has a bit of snow melt but still has great sight fishing – plenty of mayfly and caddis on the rocks – we used emerger patterns to trout feeding high up in the water column and ran heavy nymphs thru deeper runs and over drop offs, both to great effect.
We had the Airflo Airlite Rod 6wt out and I have to say it is a great rod and handled the conditions well and when I had a crack demonstrating how to cast into the teeth of the Oreti Nor’ wester using a double haul with a short stroke and making sure my backcast was high it just ripped the Airflo Ridge Tactical out and laid down perfect presentations with ease!
Reports in from the high country rivers were good with most anglers doing well and catching some fine rainbows and browns – definitely some rainbows are still spawning so if you can get into the ones that haven’t yet – they are in great nick. The rivers are holding good water flows and some are seeing some melt arrive in the afternoon but spotting is still good.
I’m off guiding again from Queenstown over the next couple of days and might hit some of the high country rivers for a wee look.
Expedition space is filling up well over Feb and March so make sure to book now so you can reserve your guided fly fishing expedition with me – its looking like its going to be an excellent season for fly fishing here in the South Island of New Zealand.
New Zealand high country streams open 2moro being the 1st of November. It’s a Sunday too, so every man and his dog will be heading into the hills today or making an early start for their spot in the morning chasing the pristine waters flowing from the Southern Alps of NZ and the large trout that inhabit them. A front is on it’s way in so that will deliver some wind and a bit of rain later in the day – spring fishing in the roaring 40’s, bring it on!
I am out guiding 2moro but will avoid the mountain streams and will head from Queenstown to stick to the lowland streams which should be relatively vacant of fisherman as most anglers make the mad rush to the high country and will be a much better option for my clients than being in the opening day gaggle of super hyped up anglers hitting the mountain rivers. Let the keen Kiwi fisherman get their fill and then I will get into the high country next week.
Although it’s not a legal thing New Zealand Professional Guides have a unwritten rule and will stay away from heli guiding these waters over the first week to let the kiwi anglers get a good crack at it. There will still be plenty of untouched high country water after it all blows over.
Check out the vids below with some early season action from down in Southland
Another day out exploring a New Zealand stream awaiting for the 1st of November opening on the back country streams had me finding some rainbow trout on the run and spawning. Check out the footage below. The bigger rainbow trout I guestimate between about 9 – 12 lbs and certainly is far larger than the other trout in the near vicinity.
The main runs up this New Zealand stream has not yet occurred yet but with the little freshes coming thru more and more trout will be running up the stream over the next week or so. This bodes very well for the opening New Zealand back country rivers as there will be some truly large rainbow trout to catch fly fishing.
Book a expedition with me to have a great chance at cracking a double figure (1olbs+) trout in the first 10 days of November. Go to my booking page and secure your expedition.
Over the last week I have been back and forth and have noticed that most angler access points have not had cars there – which means the anglers aren’t either. Quite surprising in someways as the conditions have been great for early season fishing but in other ways not so surprising as many NZ anglers hit the opening and then seemingly forget about fishing for a while. Now is certainly a good time to get into trout that have not seen much pressure.
All the rivers in my local region have been in great early season nick but we have a bit of rain coming in now so we might see a bit of a spate.
One of the streams that opens on 1st Nov has only just started to have its annual runs of large rainbow trout. This is great for the angler in the know as most years the trout run earlier and the majority of big fish have dropped out by opening. This year for the first time in many it looks as though there will still be some true trophies left to target come the opening week or even two.
This water way can be prone to some flooding and discolors quite easily but when it’s on you certainly have the chance to catch potentially the biggest rainbow trout of your life. Over the last 15 years I have caught well over 15 trout that weighed over 10lbs and a few in the truly stupendous 20lbs +mark.
This unique fishery only has the large trout in it and available to catch for a very short period each year and if they run early they are not they are just not available as the river is under closed season. This season looks like the first in a few years to give this incredible opportunity.
If you really want to have a great chance to catch one of these truly large rainbow trout book a expedition with me from the in the first 10 days of November 2009. I would highly recommend a multi day fly fishing expedition as then we can target this particular stream under the most favorable conditions during your stay to give you the greatest chance of success in hooking one of these monster trout. Days when this river may be flooded out we have an abundance of other excellent choices to ensure you will be targeting fine New Zealand trout.
Very Large Rainbow trout - New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions
Back at home base in Queenstown today after a weeks great fly fishing in Southland. In fact we really didn’t get out of Northern Southland. We hit a few different small and medium size streams and rivers, encountered chubby rain (hail), sun, snow, and drizzel but not much wind if you used the topography well and worked with it. Clear and low cold water mostly everywhere and good numbers of brown trout in good condition for early season.
Sweet Southland Water Fly Fishing New Zealand
It will interesting to see how it pans out over the next month with quite a bit of recent snow fallen and warmer temps due we will no doubt see some changes in the water conditions as spring rolls on.
The Airflo Sightfree G3 fluorocarbon worked a charm once I got my fingers around and I didn’t lose a single fish through a failure so that made me happy. I was using a 9ft 1x (7lb) tapered leader and adding a length of Sightfree G3 (5lb) tippet to take me out to the desired length.
Fish were caught mostly on nymphs with occasional use of emergers and backwater specials.
Good early season southern brown trout
The fishing is great right now with awesome water conditions, the first mad week is over and already angler numbers have dropped off and will be weekend warriors mostly until mid December so stop thinking about it, get your A into G and book a fly fishing expedition.
Today saw snow and lots of it any many places around Southland, and I am sure many other parts of New Zealand and cold Southerly winds continuing to bring snow, hail and sleet showers through much of the day.
Were were up early and had first tracks through the layer of light powder snow on the road to our start spot. The choice was get as far inland as possible and in the headwaters, out of the worst of the weather. The blasts of snow fronts stayed mainly down valley from us and the water had remained clear but bloody cold.
Fishing in the snow down south.
Small but weighted nymph dropper rig were required as most fish were down deep but feeding. All the trout took 14’s and 16’s and were mostly in good condition bar one big head long fish about 2-3 lbs under weight.
Fish on!
A few people around and about but manners were great today and a we had a couple of good chats along the way.
A good high ridging in for the next 2-3 days so we should have some good light southerly conditions and the small waters and headwaters fisheries are maybe worth a nosy. I haven’t found any of the rivers too slippery, I haven’t had to use the walking stick yet or with much if any sign of easily visible Didymo except for in the Mararoa but even that was pretty reasonable – shit I hate saying that. I am sure it will build a a bit in some areas as summer rolls on. Given the amount of snow in the hills we might be lucky and get a few floods that turn the stones a bit.
Check Clean and Dry!
Tip – It’s cold – wear waders when necessary, layer well and fish with a small pack and a good amount of snacks. I love my William Joseph backpack vest system from Manic Tackle Project – its versatility is great and it its actually a really functional unit for an fly angler – they certainly work for well for me.
I am sitting here in my house in Lumsden watching it sleet outside on day three of the 2009 -2010 New Zealand fishing season. I haven’t been sitting here on my arse today – in fact I have been for a bit of a drive – headed towards the storm to get under the leading edge of the front and escape the very strong winds and spent a bit of time exploring a spring creek – I didn’t take the rod, just had a walk and a nosy and found some nice trout then decided to come home via a few different spots to see what the water was doing after all the rain, sleet and snow (which is still going) to help choose in my decision making for tomorrow’s river.
Another Nice Southland Brown Trout New Zealand
Back to day one of the season, due to the nasty weather that was coming in I decided to abandon my first call spot and revert to plan B. We were out on the water early – in fact we pulled up at our designated place at 0530 to give us a very good shot at not being beaten to the water. To our dismay 2 vehicles were already there but after a wee bit of investigation we realized that they had come in the evening before and walked downstream and camped the night planning on fishing back up to their vehicles. This was a poor display by these cretens as this particular area prohibits camping and you are not allowed to get on the water from the parking area until 0500 – pricks! At least the ranger got their plates – I am sure they will get an infringement notice.
Plan B was altered slightly and we decided to head upstream instead. – sweet. Another set of (for want of a better word) wankas drove past us while we were setting our gear up at day break – never stopped to say gidday, discuss plans and options and promptly parked up the road about 1km (giving us only 2kms of fishing water) and walked across to the river and started fishing. This kind of behavior is very poor and most definitely not good fishing etiquette in the South Island of NZ.
Well with clear clam conditions and 2kms of available water untouched water I chose to get the 3 piece 5 wt bamboo rod out for the day and proceeded to hook and land 5 lovely big brown trout. My good buddy enjoyed his fishing but with a string of gear failures resulting in 4 lost in decided to toss (in the rubbish bag) the nylon he had just bought the day prior and use some airflo fluorocarbon sightfree G3 (5lb) and straight away got onto another good fish and this time all the gear held and he was a happy NZ angler. If it wasn’t for the gear failures in this short stretch of water we would have had 10 big brown trout to the bank. All the fish we landed were in reasonable condition for early season ( an easy late winter/early spring) but they need to get stuck into putting on weight from now on.
Nice Early season NZ Southern Brown trout
Day 2 arrived with high winds and shitty weather inbound so we drove into a spot intending on fishing a very small creek (a good long jumper could easily get across) for the day. Unfortunately the weather had already affected the water clarity so we again went to plan B. A long walk upstream on the main river through rain sleet and snow spotting and prospecting as we went. We only saw one fish which we promptly hooked and had to the bank but we really enjoyed a beautiful walk – it looks like in this system the fish have already dropped back due to the relatively low water levels for this time of the season. I will be investigating lower down on this over the next few days me thinks.
Like many anglers around New Zealand with the opening day of our fishing season starting 2moro my levels of anticipation are up and I am fizzing and ready to hit the waters of Southern NZ and start the search for big brown and rainbow trout.
I am off for a week on a expedition into Southland/Otago but we are taking the full Safari expedition kit as you never know where you may end up going. This is mainly due to the typical spring weather patterns at this time of year and being mobile can mean the difference in finding good water and weather conditions. In fact it looks like we are in for snow to low levels as a strongly southerly runs up out of the Southern ocean over the weekend – I am sure it will be interesting. One year I am sure we will end up with a big high ridging in for the opening of the fishing season.
We will certainly be looking at many of the small streams and tributaries that still hold some good brown trout after spawning while the water levels are good and offer good options if the main stems are dirty.
Keep an eye out on my blog as I will be giving reports as and when I can get internet coverage.
Welcome to New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions. Based from Queenstown and Lumsden, New Zealand, we offer a variety of fly fishing expeditions. These expeditions are for serious fly fisherman wanting to get the best fly fishing that New Zealand can offer. We offer guided fly fishing trips into waters ranging thru Fiordland, Southland, Otago, South [...]more →
