Simon,
Sorry I haven’t got back to you since I was over in December. Just a follow up to thank you for the two great guided days we had. It was a highlight of my New Zealand trip. Also give a big thanks to your dad for coming over to the motel in Lumsden in the pouring rain to pass your message onto me about the river conditions the next day.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Happy Client and Big Rainbow trout
I’ll give you a report on what happened to next day. Well it poured all night and I headed up to the XXXX lakes. I did not quite make it, but stopped on the XXXX river downstream from the lakes. The sun had come out with no wind and the river was clear and running really hard. As you know the river is full and fast. I fished upstream for quite a while struggling to find any fish holding water. I was going to turn around when I spotted a suspect shape in the eye of a pool. I had covered the area blind fishing but it make a huge difference to be able to target you cast to a specific shape. Second cast a lively 4.5 lbs rainbow trout took off downstream with me stumbling along behind. After landing the fish I remember you telling me that rainbows will often be in pairs. Sure enough another fish soon followed. This was a better fish and looked real deep. A few spectacular leaps and the hook pulled.
With a new zip in my step I headed off upstream again I went quite a way until I came to a large pool. To fish it I had to cross the wide tail. A small stream flowed strongly into eye of the pool. The stream emerged from dense native forest and fed straight into the top of the pool. The true left bank was covered in thick native vegitation. I spotted one fish on the sandy slow water below the eye which I caught fist cast. I then worked my way up the pool with a two nymph rig and indicator. There was a deep slot just down from where the creek joined. The indicator was ripped away as soon as it passed. Expecting the river bed, I struck. It felt like a bolder until a solid series of head shakes told otherwise. A few stressfull minutes passed and an very fat rainbow trout rolled into my net. It was about 6lb and in great condition. It had that red arse that mice feeders have. Second cast in the same spot produced another bigger fish and again after that. I had stumbled upon the holly grail of big rainbow trout hole. I caught and released 6 or 7 in a row from 5lbs up to a rotund 8.5lbs. I left with I’m sure more fish to be caught and headed home very satisfied. It shows that if you keep on trying you never know what might happen.
Also on another note I caught a 8.5lb brown trout on the XXXX a few days later. After trying all my normal flys for no reaction at all I remembered the big XXXX fly that I tried on the XXXX. Sure enough first cast the fish bolted upstream to engulf the fly. Unfortunately I lost the only copy of the fly a few minutes later.
Anyhow I hope you have a great year and hopefully I will see you again next year.
Pat
Another happy client heads home after snatching victory over a trophy New Zealand trout.
This proved very hard work over two days of gale force winds on the back of a storm front that dropped a load of rain and casting in these conditions is never easy.
Day one saw a bunch of hits from some big trout and included 4 busting off, one of which was a very large trout maybe somewhere around 12+lbs. At the end of the day nothing to the bank but we knew our technique to beat this crappy weather and try to land a big fish was on the money. An evening spent refining the rig saw us quite excited to hit the water the following day.
Day 2 dawned pretty much the same as the first day, strong cold winds and overcast conditions. The going proved harder with not so many chances at casting to sighted trout and a lot of blind work being done. Finally in a likely fast moving, deep rocky riffle we picked a shape (very much a maybe) and after battling the wind to get an accurate cast it all happened, the fish hit the bait, the client struck and the battle started. The fish tried to get airborne early and then settled down into the big fish waiting game using the fast deep water to exert pressure on the tippet. Everything held and over the next 10 – 15 minutes we managed to work the leviathan down to the tail of the pool and finally managed to net it in the shallows.
Good trout are being caught near Queenstown New Zealand and the Cicada imitations and other large terrestrials are working well in the rivers. In the lowland streams willow grubs are a main food source for many trout at the moment but we have also been picking up some nice trout feeding in the runs and riffles on emerger patterns.
Fly Fishing Expeditions - Great Condition Mid season Rainbow trout
Well done HB on recent your PB.
Tip of the week – get cracking early to the water you want, the early bird gets the worms as such. If some one else is there already have a chat to them, stick to the arrangement you make. If you don’t know what the etiquette is on the rivers ask someone and what ever you do don’t jump other anglers – it’s a recipe for disaster for both parties.
2 Aussie guys and a a week of back country fly fishing and camping in remote regions near Queenstown New Zealand was fantastic and saw many fine trout landed including 2 large fish, one weighing 10lbs and one 10.25lbs.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions 10.25 lbs beautiful brown trout hen
The hard yards getting into (and back out of) these areas when the weather was right saw most fish caught on terrestrial patterns – Cicada and Blowflies being the big winners along with one of my home tied flies we will just call the Wilkie Wonder!
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions 7lb back country brown trout
Many of the fish that were caught was on the first cast. Making it count first time up makes life much easier in catching New Zealand South Island trout. Over the week we landed approximately 40 trout and lost another 15 – 20 fish – what a week! It doesn’t get much better.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions 10lb back country brown trout
These particular clients are some of my regulars who have fished with me on quite a few occasions now. They have been applying the tips and tricks I give them and better still before each trip with me they get some practice in ensuring when they get here they can do the business, after all the guy on the end of the stick has to do the job at the end of the day. The Scott rods were bent all week, the Airflo lines were making light work of the wind, my new C&F design fly patch worked great – I didn’t lose a single fly all week while crawling thru all sorts of spiky New Zealand river side foliage while trying to find unsuspecting trout.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - team work
These guys work really well as a team, both with each other and me as the guide. Between us we got some great video footage – so keep an eye out for some new videos at my You Tube channel or/and Hook TV
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions releasing a brown trout
I’m at home for about 36 hours before I head out on my next Safari trip so it’s catch up time with my family and restock all the kit ready to hit the rivers in the lower 1/3rd of New Zealand’s South Island for another blast of trying to fool big NZ trout.
Fly fishing in New Zealand is just like fishing in Scotland except the trout and landscape is on steroids my clients of the last 4 days exclaimed – apart from the differences in actual fly fishing techniques.
4 days camping out in quite remote back country proved very successful for these visitors to New Zealand who landed some good fish each day and lost a few too. Most of the fish were caught on Cicadas or similar terrestrial patterns.
Once again apart from one fish it came down to making the first cast count. If we got it right first time, right line and right drag free presentation the fish were into it – if not hey presto the magic disappearing trout. The only time this was not the case we worked a fish for 1 hr and had it swing over to the fly and look several times but refuse. Many, many fly changes later the fish finally took the fly and client forgot to say ” God save the Queen”, probably only got the G in God out before setting and nothing there but the fish stayed in its feeding position and kept feeding. About 20 minutes later a “random” fly choice got another response from the fish and this time all went to plan with a great 6.5 lb trout to the bank. This sort of scenario is quite rare but the client never made a bad cast and the perseverance paid off.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Perserverance pays off
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Scotland on Steroids
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Scotland on Steroids with Rainbows
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Happy Scots
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Happy Scots and big New Zealand Brown trout
I’m off again tomorrow on another Safari trip for 8 days and will in search of some more majestic scenery and big trout – watch for the next post.
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.
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 →
