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 2017
"29 trout in 5 days!"
Adrien from France was in luck. His arrival coincided with the upturn in what had been a lousy summer.
Adrien's haul of 29 trout landed in the 2kg category after 5 days fishing was a reflexion of the near perfect conditions we experienced.
Prior to his arrival, Jacques and Christian endured terrible weather and although the catch rate took a dive, we never got skunked and landed some nice trout to boot.
Ah that's fishing!
February and at long last some real summer weather! What a change from trying to stop your hat from being blown off your head to having to pile on the sunscreen.
All of a sudden the catch rate increases with the onset of sunny mainly calm days.
Unlike some trout fishing destinations, here in New Zealand we prefer bright sunshine to aid with spotting fish. On some rivers I would even go so far as to say it's essential and I personally avoid going to them if a cloudy day is forecast.
I've said it before but it's only when you can observe trout and their reactions to your artificial flies that a strategy can be worked out. In many cases it's nothing to do with the actual fly but how it is presented. What we perceive as a perfect drift may in fact be far from it!
Just recently, a trout hanging close to the bank and in pretty shallow water looked to be an absolute "sitter".
- We pitched a nymph up - it was totally ignored. No problem - just change the fly but this too was rejected.
- Now the nymphs in question are my own little invention and I swear by them so I decided it was a question of drift.
-We presented the same fly using a different casting technique to ensure a completely drag free drift and "whammo" the trout was on.
After releasing the fish we examined it's lie and from close up the problem was obvious - while he was sitting comfortably in a hollow, the surface water was moving very fast over him so even a heavy nymph cast straight would not have presented correctly.
On a cloudy day we would not have seen this fish and the chances of a blind cast catching him would have been minimal at best!
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| Another solid rainbow for Adrian. | ... easy does it. | |
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| More high country bliss for Adrien! | Christian's perfect bow and arrow cast netted this brown trout. | |
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| Even the trout looks happy! | Christian and your fishing guide on a rare fine day | |
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| Rainbow Country. | Jacques with a fine rainbow. |
