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Taking your pack off, removing wet boots from tired feet at the end of a long days fly fishing in a remote New Zealand back country river valley then sitting around the hut fire as dinner is simmering away while you chat about the fabulous highlights of a days fishing is an awesome and inspiring thing, especially when you know that you have another day of of amazing fishing ahead of you.

New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions Browns, browns and more browns

New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions Browns, browns and more browns

Our recent guided expedition saw us hooking into trout after trout, both rainbows and browns. Many of the brown trout were well into spawning mode and at times were hard to hook as they were interested in other things but using a streamer fished up stream and ripped  back past them got some good responses as well as my special pattern X. Many of these fish were holding in very small, shallow areas of the river and you could find groups of 10 fish together looking at pairing up.

The rainbow trout were generally holding in deep long rocky runs and employing Czech nymphing tactics worked well – get deep fast and stay in contact – wham, bam, thank you mam.

New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions great late season back country  rainbow
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions great late season back country rainbow

It just goes to show that May is an awesome time to fly fish near Queenstown, New Zealand.  Most NZ anglers have switched to other recreational pursuits and the foreign anglers just really are not here and there is tons of very good fly fishing to be had if you are prepared to do the yards  to get to these incredible back country waters. Yes, the days are shorter and colder, dry fly isn’t so much a part of the game but getting to fish as my last client said for trout that average over 22 inches  and many going into the 24 – 26 inch range (or as we kiwis like to measure our trout not in length but pounds 4 – 8 lbs) and with shots at fish well into double digits (lbs) it blows all other trout fisheries in the world out of the water. Add to that, over the two days he fished with me he landed about 20 fish, lost another 10 (including one trophy) and blew good chances on another 20 or so.

New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions just an average rainbow trout!

New Zealand Fly Fishing Expeditions just an average rainbow trout!

Tight Lines!