Monthly Highlights
Below are photos and a story from the recent month's guided fly fishing trips in New Zealand's Central South Island.
January 2024
25mm of rain on January 21 hasn't help to ease the low river levels. I can't recall such a dry summer and the westerly winds have only added to the misery!
Nearly all of the smaller streams have been reduced to a trickle so instead of guiding I'm keeping a look out for stranded trout.
Once the pools become disjointed, and if there is no depth and shade, fish will perish due to lack of oxygen.
Fishing can still be good on the larger snow fed rivers but the limiting factor there is the weather. They are the sort of places you get blown off the river when the wind picks up!
I hosted Robert and Don earlier in January. With Robert we chose a spring creek while following my own advice, Don and I fished the larger rivers where trout would be be more likely to be on the feed. That proved to be the case and we landed some nice trout even though conditions weren't ideal for spotting.
I'm adding the final touch to my latest fly which will be called the SBN sub- sedge. It is the big (little) brother of the SBN sub-merger which wreaked havoc on mayfly emerger feeding trout earlier in the season.
Caddis hatches have always intrigued me - mainly because they can be very fussy, even fussier than mayfly emerger eaters. In the final conclusive test, the sub-sedge took very sporadic rising trout so that sealed the deal for me!
The fly will soon be available in my online shop: https://steelbacknymph.com/shop/
[click image to enlarge]
A happy angler with a very photogenic brown trout A pretty spotted brown trout for Robert Don with a beaut rainbow on a less than perfect day! Pretty back drop for this light coloured brownie Really lovely wild rainbow for Don Robert gently releases a nice brownie
