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.

New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions - Hog Heaven

Well done HD!

Check out my latest video at:  FlyFishNewZealand

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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