New Zealand Fly Fishing Trip 2024
Over the Easter break, went on a fly-fishing trip to the South Island of New Zealand with Beard. My last trip was in 2015,
Trip Report
Petrol was amazingly expensive with the exchange rate being NZD 1=AUD 0.918.
Giant salmon at Rakaia.
Woolworths in NZ is called Countdown.
Sunset on Lake Pukaki with Mount Cook in the distance.
Our humble cabin at the Lake Ruataniwha Holiday Park in Twizel.
Beard managed to puncture his new waders on the first day. Amazingly, after an unsucessful attempt using Gorilla tape, he patched them with bandaids and contact adhesive. They were fine for the rest of the trip.
I managed to sit on my glasses on the second day. Luckily I had a spare pair.
There was significant controversy when Tip Top discontinued Goody Goody Gum Drops ice cream. Fortunately it is now back.
Photos from Various Locations
Twizel River.
This is Lake Ohau.
Lake Benmore.
Coffee time on Lake Benmore.
This is the Ahuriri River that flows into Lake Benmore.
Ahuriri River at Clay Cliffs.
Upper Ahuriri River.
Holstein Friesian cows at Lake Benmore. By the way, one of these two photos was taken on an iPhone and the other on a Fujifilm X100T - can you tell which is which?
Mount Cook.
This was taken from the Hooker Valley Track, near the Mueller Lake lookout. It was pretty windy that day.
Fishing
I didn’t catch any fish on the first day but when I switched back to my normal fishing hat the following day, I started catching. Coincidence? I think not. As my friend Ebbtide said, “Always risky wearing a new/different hat fishing.”
My first fish. It’s a rainbow trout in poor condition.
At least it was better than Beard’s first fish!
An autopsy revealed a few nymphs.
We started catching better fish. In our best session, the trout went carzy and we caught five around 4 lbs in half an hour.
Here is a video that Beard took of me landing a brown.
Another video, this time Beard landing a rainbow.
This last brown trout was 4.5 lbs.
Next day Beard was unwell, I think he caught the flu.
Anyway, no problem I kept fishing. A fat rainbow trout.
Here’s a brown. Can’t remember if it was this one but I caught one on the very last cast of a session.
A very chewed up brown Hares Ear nymph. I made 6 dozen flies for the trip but all my fish were caught on these and I lost about 10 of them.
We released most of the fish.
Here is one of the rainbow trout that we baked.
