New Zealand Holiday

The first fish of the trip that was netted

Finally something to talk about

The smaller fish is the size that I would get in the USA typically and the bigger one is what I typically expect in the North island of New Zealand

I have been traveling around New Zealand fly fishing at all the old streams that I use to fish. The South Island turned out to be a complete failure. We only saw one fish on the Ashburton. Dickey's road looked really good this time of year and on the second cast I had a fish hooked, but it was jumping like crazy and got off. We had a few large trout chase down our flies, but give up at the end. On the way back up to the Picton ferry we stopped at a lot of places. At the Ashley river I got a 2" fish on a size 14 caddis, not the start we wanted but it looks like we were finally going to get some trout. We stopped at the Wairau River that had a nice wide holding area and it did not disappoint. The rise started just after we got there, but even if I could cast my whole floating line I would just be getting to the fish. Still it was amazing to see what looked like 3-4lb trout rising all over the water. So that was our South Island and it kind of blowed like the strong winds that can come through.

Now based in Taupo you would think that we would be fishing the lake, but without a boat and trying to keep away from the other anglers we stayed out of the Taupo region. Therefore, we also did not have to pay for an additional licence. Taupo is fishing amazingly well this year with people reporting limits with in a few hours of starting to rig (not fly fishing). We decided to fish dam to dam up the Waikato river and we started to see a lot of rising fish and even started to get a few larger trout. Still hoping to catch at least a +5lb trout before I leave, not sure I will get that +10lb trout, but that would be great.