Fly fishing near Queenstown New Zealand in stormy weather

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!