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.
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.
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.