Monthly Highlights
Below are photos and a story from the recent month's guided fly fishing trips in New Zealand's Central South Island.
February 2014
Following hot on the heels of the Bernard family (see January 2014 story), I had the pleasure of guiding another lovely threesome recently. John, Berit and young Stuart, from Perth, are no strangers to NZ but unfamiliar with the waters in the Twizel area.
I normally don't guide 3 anglers but make exceptions for families. Conditions were far from ideal with the windy and often cloudy days.
In spite of that, these hardy folk showed their metal by sticking at it and catching fish when many others would have given up!
On one occasion, I elected to take the trio up country on the back of the morning weather forecast but "light" winds ended up being a day long gale! That, plus super tough trout and some bad luck, made for a long day.
Luckily, John's last cast (literally!), saved us from being "skunked" with a fine fish to boot ( photo shown here).
At only 15 years of age, Stuart, a fly fishing debutant, was a very fast learner. It only took one demonstration for him to master that particular cast or mend. In fact, it's much easier to teach a novice than to try and correct the accumulated bad casting habits of an older person.
Our last day was on the Ahuriri. The wind relented and although the clouds remained, the day was a success with a dozen trout landed. We know this by relying on John's simple but efficient system of placing a pebble in his pocket for each fish netted!
 |
 |
|||
| Stuart with one of his first trout on a fly | Stuart showing application on the Ahuriri | |||
 |
 |
|||
| Berit with a nice Ahuriri brownie | A fine Twizel river rainbow for John |
