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Trout fly fishing new zealand

About to hit the water for 8 days guiding and this will give me some new content on fly fishing new zealand. I will be reporting back soon.

Some tips on how to fight NZ trout

Here are some tips for fighting trout that I always find useful and spend time constantly telling people - they should up your catch rate (unless you count long line releases):

1. Use the strongest leader and tippet you think you can get away with.

2. Make sure you check your leader and tippet for any weaknesses before you cast to that hog.

3. Keep the rod tip up - show the fish the butt (not your's - the rod's). If you have a low flat rod you will shock load the tippet and risk losing the fish.

4. Keep your check (tension) low - enough to stop over spooling only - use your index and forefinger with the line running through it to increase or decrease tension when you need to. If you really need too up the check when you have the chance.

5. If the trout makes a long run away from you that will take care of all the lose line spooling around in the water.

6. Get on the reel.

7. Clear the hand from the reel (completely when the trout runs).

8. If the trout runs at you - strip line in (from behind the hand that the fingers are controlling the line tension with and if possible move away from the fish.

9. If you are in the water - move out of it when you get the chance - it's always fun when the trout swims between your legs.

10. Get your hands up above your head (until you too get tired). the extra 2-3 feet elevation on the rod will lift the trouts' head up (great on brownies) and allow you to maneuver the trout where you want it to go more easily.

12. Soft wrists when the trout goes airborne - if you lower the rod tip and end up with too much slack as you lift you may shock the tippet.

13. Use rod angle to direct the fish where you want it to go as much as possible.

14. Always keep one eye on the fish while you move over tricky terrain during the battle.

14. Be aware of the terrain - as much as a river runs through it, a lost fish is better than drowning.

15. The battle is not over until the fish is in the net or up the bank.

16. The net is unlike a tennis racket.

17. Try not to water net unless there is no other option - keep one foot on the bank.

18. If you are fishing with a friend communicate throughout the battle - generally the guy on the rod is the Chief and the net guy the Indian.

19. Fight Hard

20. Unless it's really necessary don't use a net - beach the fish.

21. Beg, steal or buy a set of knee high stockings - cut the toe end off - wear one on a wrist while fishing - when you go to handle the trout (with wet hands) roll it down and you will find you can get a much less slippery hold on the fish until you release it.

22. You can hold the trout quite firmly just in front of the tail fin (with the stocking hand) while the other rests very gently under the belly.

23. Photograph and take dimensions quickly. While you are doing this give the trout a drink between photos.

24. Hold the fish upstream in light flowing water (maybe behind a rock).

25. Release hands and watch the fish swim away to battle for another day.

Another Spring Week chasing trout in NZ

Local knowledge and good use of the 'net can be key - after the last rainstorm pretty much all the waters dirtied up and many fly fishers would have been disappointed. I did the research on the 'net and then the miles and dropped into a back country river which was at a higher flow but had remained clean while the catchment next door was dirty and all those around were blown out.

It ended up to be a great day with 9 trout to the bank and one long line release with quite a few other chances as well. Some on the dry and some on nymph with the same patterns from my last blog post being effective.

Check out my net vibes page:

http://www.netvibes.com/swguiding#SW_Guiding_Public_Fishing_Info

You will find access to some useful info you can get to for trout fishing purposes off the net all in one neat place.

Post Coital Rainbow trout and fat Browns in the far south of NZ

Into December now and still ducking and diving around the weather but we are getting better periods of more settled weather which is helping the timeless art of fly fishing for NZ trout.

Last week was spent chasing some post-coital rainbows and some still right in the act too in some small back country creeks with fish happily coming to the dry fly 90% of the time and a day on a lowland river that was also productive with fat browns wanting a lightly weighted nymph and one good crack at a veritable hog that would have gone 12 -14 lbs. Had a swim to get into position for it and after about 8 casts and one change the beast went for it and unfortunately my guy thought he had put it a bit to far to the right and went into relax mode and then was wondering what to do when his guide yelled STRIKE (the fish went at it hard and no time to warn my guy it was coming) - by the time the line was tight and rod lifted it was all over and this big trout quietly disappeared into the depths. Moral of the story - when your fly is in the water - FISH IT WITH PURPOSE! You won't get a second chance especially on big trophy trout!

It's been raining hard all day and there will be some bigger volumes in the river and also discoloration in some too for the next 24hrs before they drop back again.

Productive flies of recent: Green Humpies, Blow flies imitaions, Light half back nymphs and hare and coppers.

Time flies

Well some how it's been nearly 3 weeks since I wrote my last blog. I have been busy guiding and been all over the shop in both 4WD and Heli fishing mode with single day trips and multi day trips. The weather has continued to be spring like but there has been some absolute stunning fishing days. The fishing has been a mix of nymph and dry fly fishing with more of the latter starting to come into play. We have been enjoying the use of the usual suspects - Green humpies, Royal Wullfs and Blow flies and there has been some reasonable brown beetle activity around in the evenings too. Nymphs will continue to play a valuable role through out the season. I have had good success with emergers and soft hackles also over the last 2 weeks.

All the backcounrty fisheries I have evisited have been holdinng good numbers of rainbow trout higher up the system and the brown trout seem to more abundant lower down. The brown trout are all in seeming great condition early season and of the rainbow trout are post spawning with the exception of course as is the always the case when it comes to fishing.

I am seeing a great deal of masting in the beech trees and there might be a good mouse season coming up around the place!

The next week looks a little unsettled again but lets wait and see and take it as it comes.

Get in to Queenstown Sports world and get geared up.

Remember Check Clean and Dry.

Tight Lines

Another week in the Southern region

After the last storm that brought snow to low levels throughout Southland and into Otago and even Canterbury as expected the rivers flows remained low due to the cold keeping the snow from melting. We had one of those rare blue bird days with a light southerly yesterday - the southern fly fishers wet dream! Being a Sunday many folks were out to enjoy some fishing before or after voting and I am sure many had great fishing. We certainly did with most fishing taking nymphs but the odd fish free rising from time to time and a quick switch to a black gnat proving a wise change.

We did see something a little off putting yesterday. On a river that has a series of beats and anglers access signs right beside a main road but not a single vehicle at any of them we decide to stop and use one of the beats for our mornings fishing. We rigged and walked over to the river and dropped about 100m below the vehicle to start walking up and very shortly encountered a vehicle on the far bank that doesn't have public road access and is all farm land. I walked up to the one figure I could see and he informed me that he had driven down that side and dropped 4 fisherman off (so there was 5 fisherman in total) spread out over the next 4 fishing beats upstream. I said ok mate we are out of here and headed off to another area and had a successful day. Now I have no problem with other parties of fishermen, its parr for the course in rivers with roads beside them, however trying to be a sneaky and driving down the other side of the river thru farm land dropping of so many other fisherman when there are public anglers access signs from the other side is not really fair in my book. We were lucky that we realized what the situation was very early in our day and got out of dodge city but it could easily have been different and our day would have been wrecked. These jokers could have used two road public accesses and put 2 parties of two fisherman together, left the vehicle at one of the accesses and a sign at the other rather than spreading them out over 4 beats with no indication of them even being there from the public accesses. I am pretty sure that most other anglers would have been very annoyed to see this kind of conduct going on and it should not be condoned in any way.

If there are public accesses, use them. Leave a sign in your vehicle saying which way you went, UPSTREAM or DOWNSTREAM and if you want to be really nice write the time down you started off on the sign as well.

November Rivers Open and the Spring weather continues

The weather was quite rough for Lower South Island back country opening day with high winds being followed by a nasty but quick moving front. Anybody who walked into the backcountry rivers would have had a great time if the had the opportunity to fish the next 2 days which were about as perfect blue bird as you can get.

It just goes to show how far South we are situated here (45 deg S) this morning it is snowing hard out (still is as I write this) and has even been settling in some places Queenstown. A very cold blast has come charging up from the Antartic. I am sure it will pass quickly enough and 2moro will probably be bluebird at least out west, maybe not down south.

The rivers wont be too affected as the storm has come in exceedingly cold. There could be some rises in river levels over the next couple of days when it warms up due to snow melt but the mostly there will be clean water available to fish and the higher up the system you go the better it should be.

I have been out guiding a bit since my last report and there has been some excellent fishing if you can beat the roaring 40's winds - local knowledge is a good thing - you can't beat the wind but you can work with it.

Some of the small spawning streams that have just opened seem to have had early spawning runs and numbers are down as rainbow trout have already been dropping back (it's always possible that its the other way round tho) into the main system or lakes. However the bigger of the backcounrty rivers are fishing well and will contiue to do so over the next few months and some of the small streams are still well worth a walk.

Nymphing has been the way forward for the upstream fisherman but dry fly is starting up as the temps increase and it won't be long now until we see some beetle action.

Didymo - it's still there so don't be complacent, check clean dry. Most of the rivers that have been more affected by it over last summer down here seem to have had some good floods strip much of it out and there was been some great fishing in areas that were choked up with it last summer.

Some of the rivers that have bad didymo build ups when I have been there over the last season or 2, the fish we have caught have been in excellent nick and have been very accepting of taking a dry. I have a theory - the fish are looking towards the surface more often for food sources to eat and therefore will come to the dry more easily than when they were feeding pre-dominatly on nymphs prior to didymo. I will continue to explore this strangely exciting idea.

Spring continues way down in the South Island

The spring weather down here at 45 deg South continues which is not unusual as it normally goes on until Xmas.

This last week has seen me doing some big miles around Southland in particular ducking and diving around the weather.

Yesterday we ended up on predominately rainbow trout water and had success with 3 landed, 2 lost and 2 missed strikes. Most of the day was fine and sunny on us but all around was frontal storms barreling thru. It snowed on us once briefly and rained twice - again briefly. Considering the weather our choice for the day was a very good one.

Rivers (29th Oct):

Upper Mataura - brown dirty in am (due to stopbank works above fairlight) clearing later in day.

Oreti - discoloured in am clearing and fishable by afternoon above Mossburn

Mararoa - clear and low/medium flow

The fishing has been excellent during the last week but the ability to dodge weather has been of the upmost importantance. Fish in all the rivers have been very accepting to most standard nymph patterns.

The backcountry rivers open this Saturday the 1st of November 2008.

Tight Lines.

Improving weather in The Southern NZ regions

Since the 1st week and a half of the fishing season the weather has improved (for the time being) down here in the lower third of the South Island. This has created a vast improvement in water clarity and all the rivers and streams are clean at present.

I have visited quite a lot of waters in the last week thru West Otago and Northern and Western Southland - all have been clear and fishing well although flows are quite large still (be careful on your crossings). The fishing has been good and we have been able to sight and catch many fish using standard nymphing techniques. A few trout have sucumbed to the dry fly as well.

As normal at this time of year some of those little hidden gems are the place to be as they are holding fish while they carry good early season water flows.

The trout themselves are a mixed bag with some very well conditioned trout and some trout needing to work hard over the next 2 months to put their condition back on.

There is still plenty of snow to melt off the mountains so we will see some high, dislcoloured water soon enough again - remember you can still find clean water usually and there is always the option to fish a streamer fly.

In 10 days most of the South Island New Zealand back country rivers open.......

Tight Lines

New Zeland Southern Spring Weather and fly fishing

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drop down to the Lumsden accommodation and do some work around the yard etc and then took off from there on a big circuit checking water out.

Upper Mataura - big flow and green murk - no sight fishing - fishable
Lower Mataura - Big flow green/brown - no sight fishing - worm country!
Oreti @ Lumsden - Big flow green/brown - no sight fishing - Woolly buggers and worm country
Oreti @ Mossburn - Big flow green/brown - no sight fishing- Woolly buggers and worm country
Aparima - Big flow brown - no sight fishing - Woolly buggers and worm country
Hamilton Burn - Big brown - no sight fishing - Woolly buggers and worm country
Waraki - Medium flow - clean - sight fishing
Borland - Medium/big flow - tan clean - semi sight fishing
Lower Waiu - Big flow - brown - no sight fishing - woolly buggers and worm country
Mararoa - Big flow - brown - no sight fishing - woolly buggers and worm country
Upper Waiau - Big Flow - clean

More rain overnight turned to snow this morning for a short period so more water has been sent into the catchments and when it warms up again there will be plenty of melt coming off too.

The NZ Southern Fishing Season is open

1st of October finally arrived in Queenstown. After 2 weeks of stormy wet and nasty weather we were expecting some big water. As it turned out the day dawned to heavy rain turning to snow to 300m and then dropping back to a biting SW wind. Our drive South saw us looking at a great deal of water and found all of it big and dirty (a worm fisherman's dream). We decided to drop into my fishing crib and get it set up before driving around for more exploring. 1700 saw us on a water a good long jumper could get across and a fish was spotted and hooked 1st cast and in the ensuing battle the fisherman forgot felts were banned and he was in rubber soles - turned around like a ballet dancer and promptly crashed to his knees smacking one on a sharp stone (right on the knee cap) - a yell followed quickly by an appeal to come and take over the rod end up in us both working a very nice 4lb brown trout to the bank. It was time to go home and get the voltaren to work and some whisky to celebrate our opening and the team work required to get this fish on one hell of a nasty opening day.

2nd of October was meant to be a corker but the next front moved in faster than expected and we woke to more howling winds and decided to leg it to an area that just might have cleanish water and might get us some shelter - but a serious 4wd track to get there with the possibility of getting stuck. This approach worked - we didn't get stuck and we found ourselves hooking a few more fish in a great scenic location.

The 3rd saw us heading to another point of the compass to get out of the still vicious winds to one of my little back up areas and a couple more fish out of clean but big water - no wind tho and time to head home and shelter. The drive home saw lots more dirty water and continuing high winds and today the 4th was another storm coming in with heavy rain.

Oh the fun and joys of spring time fishing

Tips before the season starts

Go on line and purchase your license now at Fish and Game www.fishandgame.org.nz and you will get a plastic credit card style one sent to you. Read the regulations!

Check what state you left your gear in at the end of last season and take the required action to have it ready to go for opening day - you want to be fishing not buggering around!

Check you leader and change it should it show ANY signs of wear and tear. Test all the knots in your rig!

If you have felt soled boots that are in good nick try taking them to your local shoe repair guy and see if he can do something for you. If they are in a average state just buy a new set of rubber soles (with tungstan studs)and be done with it!

Take a spare rod with you just in case one of those big beaded nymphs has hit your rod at the end of last season and is just waiting to go and really piss you off on opening day!

As time goes on I will publish more top fishing advice for you light reading enjoyment.

Tight Lines.

Cowboy guides

There's plenty of dodgy fishing guides out there, the fly by the seat of your pants and hope you don't get caught kind of guides who generally are poor at what they do, endanger people in all sorts of ways and give fishing guides a bad rap.
The question is how do you spot them so you can then stay clear of them?

Well here's a couple of things to remember:

If you pay peanuts you get monkeys!
Many cowboy guides prices are considerable cheaper than professional fishing guides as they do not adhere to the costs of actually running a business or the regulations of running such a business and are highly detrimental to the fishing guiding business and NZ tourism in general.

Examples of this include:
Not having commercially licensed vehicles or the correct licensing to drive them. Not having Department of Conservation (DoC) concessions to guide fishing while on DoC estate.
Not having commercial insurance.
Not having a audited safety operations plan.
Not having up to date first aid qualifications.
Not having secure means of taking payments.
Excepting only cash payments.

One of the first things you can do to avoid the cowboys is only hire guides who are New Zealand Professional Fishing Guides Association (NZPFGA) members as they have MOST of the above covered by their membership with the NZPFGA. Once you have got that far you should then check a couple of things with them:

Have they got a commercially licensed vehicle and the correct licensing to drive it?

How much experience do they have guiding fishing in that region?

What is the time length for the guided day?



If you do this then you stand a great chance of getting a very good guide but yes you will have to pay a bit more for it but it should make the overall experience so much better and also so much safer.

Tight Lines!

If you don't ask you won't get!

If you don't ask you won't get! If you do ask you might!!

One of the things I find interesting is that many costing structures fishing guides use includes having to pay a commission to agents who send them business. This may be up to 20% and is one of the costs of running a business based in the tourism industry in New Zealand. Because of this, that cost gets built into the retail price and that what is offered as the advertised retail price (unless the business owner is either dumb or is not dealing with agents - unlikely)to you the general public.

In the quieter months of the season (October, November, April and May)in the South Island ask for a discount and you may be pleasantly surprised. The guide may not offer you a 20% discount but I think most people would be happy getting a 10% discount. Of course as the busy months of the season arrive (December, January, Feburary and March the answer is more the likely to be "no, bugger off" if you had the audacity to ask in the first place. Basically it is a supply and demand issue and everybody is busy over those months!

Ask me for a discount in October or May and I will most certainly offer you 10% and you might be lucky and get 15% off but it depends on your bargaining skills.

Another scenario that pops up all over New Zealand is the many "fly by night guides" who are operating completely illegally - check out my next post and I will give you the low down on how to avoid the cowboys!

Tight Lines

South Island Rivers to re-open soon after spawning season- Felts soles Banned

With less than one month until our lowland rivers (The South Island of New Zealand) re-open on the 1st October the usual excitement is beginning to build. I am keen to get back on the water and start my seasonal exploratory duties of checking out the various waters around and track down some big trout for standby when the right clients and conditions avail themselves. You can bet your arse that I will do a bit of fishing too!


Felts have now been officially banned by the Minster - see below:

To reduce the risk of didymo spread, Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick today agreed to the New Zealand Fish and Game Council recommendation to restrict the use of footwear with felt soles by fishing licence holders.

“Our world-famous trout fisheries are threatened by the invasive alga ‘rock snot’, or didymo. While didymo is currently only in some South Island rivers, it could be easily spread to other places and we are taking these steps now to protect our precious waterways,” Steve Chadwick said.

The new condition is part of the Anglers Notice and comes into affect from the beginning of the fishing season on 1 October.

“The New Zealand Fish and Game Council has recommended that people who hold a licence to fish for trout, and other sports fish, should contribute to the national campaign to halt the spread of didymo by not using felt-soled waders when fishing.

“Given that felt-soled waders, and similar footwear, are very difficult to clean using the ‘Check Clean Dry’ approach, I have accepted the Council’s advice.

“It is important that fishers realise that this restriction does not remove the risk of didymo spread – it will address one particularly high risk, but we still need them to continue to be vigilant about cleaning other equipment.

“The ‘Check Clean Dry’ practice is critical to fight against didymo and other freshwater pests. Fishers have a special responsibility to help care for the trout fisheries that are the basis of their sport, and I urge them to continue to vigilantly follow Biosecurity guidelines.

“I will also be asking both the Department of Conservation and Fish and Game councils to increase their monitoring and education work relating to other vectors of didymo in freshwater, as part of the Biosecurity NZ nationwide campaign.

“I acknowledge that some anglers will need to change the types of soles they use, however, no-one wants to see didymo spread further, and the negative impact of didymo reaching their favourite fishery would be far greater than meeting the costs of this restriction.”

Some waders and boots used by freshwater fishers have a sole made from a thick felted material, which poses a very high biosecurity risk as micro-organisms, such as didymo, can become trapped in the felt, and cannot be killed by the normal cleaning methods used with other footwear. There are alternative soles available, and waders can be re-soled.

Check Clean Dry
Check Clean Dry
Check Clean Dry

Winter Update

The Clutha in Otago, New Zealand is fly fishing well at present downstream from the Hawea confluence with plenty of rainbow trout either pre or post spawing so some are in good nick and other not so. When you combine the power of the mighty Clutha and even with small post spawning rainbows you've got a battle on. A quick trip the other day allowed us some great sight fishing opportunities to fish in riffles and between 2 fishers 8 fish to the bank and a few more lost. Due to the high fish numbers we decide to keep a couple of fish each for dinner and yummy they were. Biggest fish of the day went around 5.5lbs and smallest around 2 lbs

Southern Seasons finished

Well we are all done down here with the season finishing on the last day of May. May was a good month if you put the yards in there were some hogs for the catching - See the pic of a friend who did some of those hard yards - pay off - I think so!.

If you want to know what I am up to and what the ski conditions are like around the Queenstown area please see my ski blog www.swskiguiding.blogspot.com. I'll be back writing up my fishing trips come Oct unless I sneak in a visit to the North Island over the winter!

ANZAC Long weekend

The Nissan Safari all packed up with just about everything you could possibly need for a fishing road trip. We headed down for a few nights based in Lumsden and the last of the fishing left before the low country rivers close on the last day of April. We maanaged to get two good days on the Oreti - hard going with low light at this time making spotting hard (no need to be out the door early) of the year but we managed to get onto a few good fish on the dry fly and find some late evening hatches to attend. We also noted a pool that had 40+ fish in it but none feeding. It looked like they were waiting for a fresh (that was coming) to head on a spawning run. After dark may have been worthwhile but we had other plans.

Gunns camp in the hollyford was waiting for us with a cabin booked and a date with some rainbows. It is big mountain water and with the storm around remmbering wher you are and the safety that goes with an area that gets between 6 - 8 meters of rain per annum - any good downfall can see the river rise quickly. This is a place that fish can be found by pooking in thru dense Fiordland bush and finding pools and then spending time to spot for both rainbow and brown trout. Generally speaking the fish can be hard to catch at this time of the year but with patience, skill, some luck and targeting the 'bows when you find them can pay dividends. We had 2 good days here with some good bows to show for it and then it was off with a stop in the Eglington and a and some mayfly action before heading back to Queenstown. All in all a greta trip in an amazing landscape with some nice fish to boot.

SW Guiding Maps

Hi there - I have just been learning how to use nomao mapping for my blog and website - it's very good and easy to use. I embedded one below that you can scroll around on and look at my Queenstown base and Southland Homestay base locations and also get a photo and video - I hope you enjoy.

Pricked by SWGUNNY with Nomao

Beautiful Autumn

The first good autumn /winter storm came thru dropping quite a bit of snow down to about 3000 ft lowering to 1400ft in Queenstown. Snow to ground in areas south like Mossburn and Lumsden etc. This has been followed by a very cold night with big frost so will it be interesting to see the Southern rivers this coming week. All our backcountry rivers low and clean and I imagine similar in the South but it may create a small fresh followed by some melt fresh, stirring the browns up a little for spawning runs in some areas --- maybe!

There should be some great mayfly hatches in the afternoons - I am off to Lumsden for four days this coming week so I will let you know whats going on.

Makarora

A awesome sunrise this morning and and on the road headed for a days fishing with beautiful Autumnal weather at Makarora. Crystal clean water is what we expect to find and do worth a light southerly wind blowing on our tail. Pretty hard going this morning with fish being hard to find and those that we do we botch it all up and off they slide until we are well past. Around 1400 things changed as expected and the browns cam into the shallow riffles to feed on mayfly. We started to find fish and although no hatch was on we ran a parachute Adams over them and no hesitation with the fish coming up to suck them down. By 1600 wit the sun slipping behind the mountain tops and the temperature dropping it was time to walk back to the truck and head home happy with the knowledge of finding trout around the time we expected to see them and then managing to fool a few of them - another great days fishing in the late season. Oh by the way - still happy enough to wet wade on these nice days but wearing thermal underwear below the pants and carry a spare layer or 2 in the backpack.

Good late season fishing

6th April - leaving early today (0500) we headed off deep into southland to spotx. Arriving early we headed well up river before starting to fish to give us the best chance of undisturbed water (big walk back at the days end - oh well). As the light lifted we started spotting some good trout. We got them to lift to para adams #12 even with no hatch and when that didn't work we went to them and had success on Pheasant Tail #12-14. Got a good solid 1/2 hr hatch at 1400 - fish in the riffles - ye haa. 8 fish landed and about the same lost for one reason or another and a couple of missed strikes. The browns are moving up river for spawning so it is a good idea to check out upper reaches of water ways if the have reasonable water flow - look after a fresh. Well worth the longer drive today as the fishing in more northern southland has been harder as of recent. Still have got to chase those Salmon up the Dart yet. Next days fishing is friday 11th - will come back with a report then

28th March

A fresh came thru last night so we headed off to the Matukituki mouth to see if there were any salmon schooling getting ready to run or brown trout but to no avail. It was off on the hunt for rainbows in the mighty clutha - this proved quite successful with 5 fish taken and 2 lost (all on nymphs)one of which was a trout around the 8lbs mark. with all the rest coming in at between 3 and 5lbs but in the big water worked us hard like fish twice the size.

Apparently the salmon are schooling off the Dart mouth at the moment so that could be worth a crack next up.

The Autumn weather should be starting to create some good mayfly hatches on some of our southern rivers.

Easter Guiding

Based at Mavora Lakes saw 4 great days of fishing. One on the upper Oreti with fish sitting in riffles and taking either h&c nymphs or off the surface with Para Adams. One day in upper Mararoa with fish willing to come to surface and take black nats and similar terrestials, one day up in Windon with good fishing and again terrestial going well with good fish action. Last day on Oreti but lower down and a bit harder with cloud cover making spotting difficult but good fish found in backwaters and could be tempted to come to the surface with small dry's. All in all a great Safari trip for some good end of March fishing.

Back in the Whakatipu

Great to be back home after a very successful trip up north. I had a chance to chase some snapper and also some kingfish in the Coromandel on the fly with mixed success but lots of enjoyment. Snapper for dinner one night!

The weather is starting to cool down in the South as Autumn is approaching but the fishing is still great. On the Oreti river yesterday with no wind and early cloud cover burning off provided some great fishing. Trout sitting under lips and taking nymphs were enticed easily with accurate casts and later in the day fish started coming to the surface taking dry's and provided some more sport. All in all 5 to the bank and lost 3 so not a bad day!

As we move more towards the end of March and into Autumn we will start to see some great mayfly hatches on some of our rivers while the mountain rivers will conitnue to provide great sport right up until the end of May. The brown trout have had a great summer and are coming into awesome condition as the season drifts towards closing of the lowland rivers at the end of April and the back country rivers the end of May. From now to the end of the season is one of my favourite times to be on the river, big strong fat fish and awesome weather, scenery is pretty good too!

In The Coromandel

Well I am guding in the Coromandel right now with a group of three from the USA - been thru Hawkes Bay prior to arriving here. Spent sometime at a 10 yr celebration of the Te Angi Angi Marine reserve as we were invited by friends of mine from the local Maori community. It was a dawn ceremony with full maori customs - very pleasant to be there. We also spent 2 days after this with the local Maori comunity learning there ways - very intereting for us all. We also got to eat plenty of kiamoana (seafood) especially crayfish. We then had three days at 2 days at a HB farm and left them getting the first decent rain for many months - I think they liked us!

We then flew to Akl and drove down to Coromandel and settled in at our accommodation at Matarangi and have spent the last two days on the beach, relaxing, sightseeing and 2moro we have a charter boat to take us sightseeing from the water and a spot of snorkling and fishing along the way - should be great - up date coming soon.