Again the early season fly fishing in Southland proves fantastic with a great run of weather over the last 3 or 4 days. The rivers have remained fairly full and contain some snow melt making for a green clean look. Yesterday saw my very skilled fly fishing client hook into some great fish. The largest fish was a great condition brown trout with a pre-fight weight of 10.25 lbs with beefed up shoulders and the muscle to give any angler a run for their money and this certainly proved the case. The Airflo flurocarbon tippet held as expected and this fine fish finally succumbed for a quick photo session before being released to make another angler happy sometime later in the fishing season.
New Zealand Fly Fishing Expedtions - A fine early season trophy brown trout
One wonders what this fish will weigh in at in a couple of months. The other fish caught were also in excellent condition and put up bloody great battles too.
These fish were all caught using sight fish tactics and were feeding in the rocky runs and riffles. Fly choice was a size 16 emerging nymph pattern run as a dropper below a pretty decent “bomb” to get down to the feeding zone fast.
The weather looks like it’s about to change again with some pretty spicy looking NW winds coming in over the weekend followed by showery out breaks and temps lowering with possible snow predicted to low levels on Tuesday – gotta love that spring weather!
If you want the chance to catch some bloody good South Island trout make sure to book with me to secure your fly fishing trip.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciated everything you did to make my fishing trip unforgettable. That trophy brown was totally unbelievable! Frankly, I’m surprised we were able to land him. That was one of the longest fights I’ve ever had with a fish. Fighting that trout and the river current was a whole new experience for me. Your advice and help were invaluable. I will definitely call you the next time I get to New Zealand. And I really enjoyed your website article and photo. Thanks again for putting me in position to catch the fish of a lifetime. And it was almost a few fish of a lifetime. All in all…brilliant!!!
