Fantastic Fly Fishing in New Zealand

Hi Everybody!

Today we fly fished in less than perfect weather. It was overcast and windy (I mean real windy). That meant sight fishing would be tough. The real challenge for the day was where to fish when the norwestor was tearing down the valley near Milford Sound. Google Earth and a keen eye saved the day.  The insight you gain allows you to make many valuable decisions about your day without going anywhere. Karen and I wanted to fish further up the valley but the relentless wind had a lot to say about that. We fished in a treed area that greatly helped to make the wind bearable. river. Amazingly enough we all had plenty of water to fish.

Karen and I had our best day of fly fishing in New Zealand today.  Rainbows and browns were caught with the Pom Pom fly as well as a variety of nymphs although a red copper john did do very well.

We saw some movement in the eddy across the river. Karen and I went to investigate. Sure enough a nice brown was in the eddy. Karen carefully set up and laid a perfect cast just upstream of the brown and to the side. The brown turned and slowly swam over and came to the surface to engulf the Pom Pom. The smile on Karen's face showed how much that moment meant. Lots of pics and the brown trout was off and back to its haunt.

Another neat moment happened on a run where I was not getting my nymph where it had to be to catch some rainbows. I finally went to a Rowley strike indicator and two nymphs. It was just what the doctor ordered because 5 rainbows came to hand in quick order. Sadly, a rather large fish broke me off. Darn!

We went on to the next run.  Half way up the run two things happened fast. My strike indicator dipped below the run with a nice 4 pound brown rocketing out of the water. Karen waded across the river to help me with my brown.  I managed to nymph up a nice 4 pound rainbow as well.

Throughout the day we caught fish in so many ways. Even follow up fishing was fruitful because the beat we fished is very popular.

The day ended with pizza and beer. The day was fabulous. Yes we touched a lot of fish today. It was fun and we did not get back to Te Anau until 9:30 p.m. The showers and wind did not slow us down at all. You don't get days like today very often.

This brown was sitting in a calm back water just waiting for me. I took advantage and got him on the first cast.

The lupins are fabulous. We were walking back to Wicked to go home after a great day on the river.

Happy faces are all around as we tromp through the lupins. Our tummies were rumbling by this time in the day. Bring on the pizza!

One more of me and my brown - doesn't he have a big head? He was definitely looking for some food and will fill out quite a bit by the end of summer.

Great colors on this brown trout.