The good and the ugly

My trip to New Zealand is looking like it will becoming to an end, so time to hit the rivers while I have the chance.

I decided to stick to rivers I had the best lucky on and ones that were close. Heading out the sun was shining and then as I got closer to the river the sky turned to low cloud. On getting to the river I set up and put on a streamer with a trailing nymph as nothing looked to be rising yet. I headed straight for the intersection of the main stream and a small feeder stream. On getting there, there was a reasonable trout in the shallows, but it saw me as soon as I started to false cast. I headed to a nice ledge, which also was were a fork was in the river. Right below my feed was a massive trout (7-8lbs at least). Not really thinking about what I was doing I put a nice cast out in front of the trout and as the streamer went past the fish bolted, should have gone with just the nymph but I was not thinking at that stage. There were a few trout further up the stream feeding on nymphs so I put another cast out further. This time I had a chasing trout and it looked to have taken the nymph, however I just had to much line out to get any tension before it spat the nymph out. The trout in the main river started rising, more like jumping. I ran the streamer down the side of the river and was surprised by a trout hiding in the weeds that chased the streamer, but did not take. A second cast down the same line and the fish was fighting to get the streamer out of it's mouth. Just my lucky, as I tighten the line I helped pull the streamer out. Already I was two fish down and two that did not want to play ball. Changing to just a nymph and casting to the rising trout I finally got a couple of trout for dinner. The bigger of the two was a really good fight and was running and jumping for about 5 mins, both were over 35 cm. Possibly the last trout I will catch in New Zealand.

Lost

I went out today for a short visit to another dam. The first one I went to I had a walk around and saw a nice trout in a side stream and then a few jumping trout out in one of the ponds. By the time I had started to set up, another group of anglers had arrived and started to fish the pond. They seemed pretty excited about seeing a fish, but missed out. Then they started to work the dam wall from the bridge. I did throw out some casts, but nothing seemed to come in the short period I was there. To make matters worse a family turned up and one was spin fishing while the others waded in the water with a dog, so I called it a day. I decided to see what was on the bridge and when I got there the two guys had a trout on and were trying to play it to a safe landing spot. After talking to them it seemed like they fished here quite often with the same process, usually dry flies but were using a bead head pheasant tail today. The trout they caught was ~35 cm the exact min. size limit.

I then moved to another dam, but one I had been to before. Not much was happening so I swung some streamers. Finally, I spotted a trout feeding heavily on the surface and sub-surface. So I put on a midge larva and after a few casts I got it to take, but then it all when wrong. After the take the trout decided to head straight for a rock and I was not going to have any of that so I slammed on the breaks by grabbing the line and lifting the rod. All that led to was the hook coming out and the fishing racing to the deep.

After my failed fishing for the day I picked some blackberries and headed home.

Busted

It was a nice sunny day so I took the long drive to the Waipapa Dam in the off chance of getting a big trout. I knew the trout were around as some were rising occasionally. Going from dragon flies to a yellow Dorthy  with a trailing bead head hares ear I was finally able to hook into a trout. However, I did not get to see the trout as it busted off my nymph that was on a 8lb tippet. The only sign of the trout was some scales on the streamer hook. It would have been nice to have at least seen the fish, but for now I know I lost most probably the best fish I have had on so far in New Zealand.

Still catching trout in NZ

Times are tough. There are piles of trout where I have been going, but they are clued into something that I do not seem to have. To make matters worse, I did not bring any of my flies with me so I have been fishing with what I have tied here and on a limited budget. So that has mainly been a caddis dry fly and bead head hare's ear dropper. I have also tied a few streamers with material what was donated to me. I have been having pretty good success until now.

It is almost time for the willow flies and I through that was the issue, but my midge nymphs did not work. So last week I sat on the bank watching +5lb trout leap clear out of the water and all I could see were red dragon flies and a couple of brown mayfly spinners. So I tied up some mayfly emerger and spinner patterns with what I had, no dry flies as I do not see the point in buying a cape, and also some red dragon flies with red wool and some red copper john's.

To test out the new flies I hit the river close to where I have been staying and after a few hours of jumping fish and no strikes I decided to move to a small inlet stream and swing a streamer with a trailing hare's ear nymph. Casting across the stream and then flicking the line out all the way to the backing I was able to get a drift through the mouth of the stream with the river. After 3 casts I had a follow, one small rainbow that I let go and then a 30 cm rainbow that I decided to keep for lunch. On the way back to the car I decided to fish my original spot as I could see a larger trout still feeding. Tying on only a red copper john, I cast the nymph in front of the trout. As soon as it landed the rainbow leapt clear out of the water and pile drivered the nymph to the bottom of the river. Pulling back on the rod I was to receive some long runs and spectacular jumps before I got it to shore. This one was a keeper and would be turned into dinner.

When I gutted it I checked to see what it was eating and not to my surprise it's belly was stuffed full of dragon flies.

Now it is time to head to another river where I know bigger fish have been rising like this.