Scott's Fly Fishing and Astronomy Site

New Zealand Fly Fishing 2003

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My day trout fishing in New Zealand.

I work up the morning of June 24, 2003 at seven on a cool rainy morning. I was actually awake off and on since it started dumping rain at 5 a.m. worried about all the rivers in New Zealand being blown out on my dream fishing trip.  I was assured over dinner and drinks with my Guide (Ross Hamilton from www.dreamstreams.co.nz) the night before that the river she would take me to were in good shape and need a lot more rain to blowout.  Ok, but...

My wife Helen was going to fish with me, but the rain provided her with an excuse to sit by the fire in our beautiful pine lodge on Lake Taupo (www.roanokelodge.co.nz). 

I dressed and jumped in Ross' Toyota SUV and headed out to pick up a day license and continue down the highway for 20 minutes or so.  We turned off the highway and followed a very muddy track along the W River.  This is a small river that is you can wade across at almost any point.  A few minutes of driving brought us to a nice U bend in the river.

The rod I fished was an 8 wt. local-made rod that was nice and soft (felt more like a 7 wt.).  The flies that Ross used to start out with were a Red Bomber (think #10 hook with a bead head wrapped with a lot of lead and finished by wrapping green copper to give it color - some use epoxy on it to keep it from unraveling after a strike or two).  This was a tool fly to get our second hook down deep in the current.  The second fly was an egg pattern (#12 or so).  No glory, not frill, just an egg. I looked skeptical at him and he asked me if I wanted to catch large trout.  I laughed and said, I'd dig up a worm if he wanted. 

Into the stream we went.  I worked a seam from the river bend for about five minutes before the indicator <go ahead, insert indicator joke here> took a plunge down at the end of the drift.  Fish on!  No doubt about it, there wasn't a nibble on any of the hookup's.  The line would go taut and the fish would begin to pull hard.  This fish ran upstream a half-dozen yards and began jumping madly (a site I was going to be seeing more of the rest of the day).  The fish jumped three or four more times before I got it under control and began to scrip in line (no way to even consider getting it on the reel).  I was able to work the trout into Ross' net (a long handled, large diameter net).  A minute or so later, I had a three pound trout in my hands for the quick photo and release.  The first fish on a guided trip is special.  The client (me) and the guide (Ross) can now relax.  I didn't measure the fish, but it looked to be over 20" easily.

We fished this bend a bit longer and didn't hook another fish.  So we made our way back to the car and moved up-river to another similar bend (a bit more "L" shaped).  This section of the river had a wide bend that was a cut bank and had blackberry bushes handing into the water (note line cutters!).  There was a sunken branch at the tail out and a tree hanging on the inside of the bend behind me (required a bit of aside-arm cast).  The water was a food deep where I was standing on the inside looking upstream and the river curved to the left just upstream. The seam was 6-8' deep and moved at a slow to moderate pace.  The water was not gin-clear (couldn't see the bottom of the seam), but just a tad off color from the rain.

This was the money hole.  Right away I hooked a fish and it was hot like a steelhead, but just didn't have anywhere to run besides up or downstream.  It jumped several times and Ross netted it on a fairly hot rundown stream. I asked that he let me play the fish a bit longer as In ever felt that I had this fish under control.  He obliged on the next fish, but still netted the fish before I would have.  Thinking back on it, I believe that he was protecting the fish in this river.  These were large lake Rainbows that were fresh in the river from Lake Taupo on the way up to spawn.  They didn't need extended fights to wear them out, they had business to do.

Over the next two and a half hours, I pulled out eight or ten fish out of this run.  Some were slightly darker than others, some were bright chrome silver (looked a lot like steelhead, both in size and in color). The fish were all larger than the first one I caught and started creeping up to the four and five pound range easily.  I finally remembered to measure a fish.  We marked Ross' net with an average sized fish from this hole (caught and lost larger Rainbows).  Later at home, this marked taped out to slightly over 24".  I noticed that some of the fish had a really broad back to them (shoulders) and were much stronger fighters.  Of course I also lost several fish. I figured we were nettings lightly over half of the fish I hooked.  If I had to guess, without a net, of the 15 or so fish I hooked, I might have landed four or five of them.  This is where I hooked into the two largest fish of the day.  Of course I lost them.  Two fish, back to back, looked (according to Ross) to be over six pounds took me for a hell of a ride splashing up and downriver.  One broke off on a huge jump, the other just ran straight downstream and snapped me off.  I don't know the tippet size, but it was stout.  The rest of the day, Ross kept saying, "Gee, I wish you would have landed those two fish.  They were dandies."  Great.  At the time, it didn't bother me in the least, but now I have a nagging wonder about how big these guys really were. Guess I'll have to go back.

Around mid-day we move out to fish The T River.  This is a large river similar to the Deschutes or other big western US rivers.  We waded through a channel to an island that provided good access to a deep run at the bottom of a long riffle section.  The previous week, Ross had caught a large brown trout here and was attempting to accommodate my hope for a brown trout.  No such luck on the brown.  However, after achieving the right drift on a long cast to the seam of the fast and slow current, I was able to hook into a really nice Rainbow.  This one was in the four-pound range and put up a heck of a fight using the fast current.  It took a lot of line out and I really had to work to get him into the slower water.  Two runs later, we landed and released this very bright fish.  We changed the dropper fly and put on a really nice looking nymph.  

The next fish I caught surprised me.  It was only about 17" and Ross laughed when I brought it to hand and said, "You've caught an American trout!" Pretty funny.  Man, I'm dying for these trout at home.  It looked tiny compared with the previous fish I'd caught.

I landed one more fish (a nice sized one too).  We moved to the tail out of this run to swing a wet fly with a sinking line.  It was an olive wooly bugger on full sink line on a 6 wt. rod.  It was a dream to finally toss a fly 70' or more without a real struggle.  On the demo cast, to show me where he thought I should cast, Ross hooks a large trout.  He then hands me the rod and makes me land it. I tried to tell him that he hooked it, he's gotta land it!  Fun fight again with a lot of leaps and splashing.  All the Rainbows I caught, without exception, jumped a couple of times or more.   Very active (and pissed off) fish.

After a few swings of the wet fly we drove up river to look another run. It had a nice pod of fish holding below the riffle.  We worked several flies right over them and didn't get a bite.  There were a couple of fishermen below us that had worked through the run already and we suspected that the fish were already worked.

We drove to the third river of the day, the P River.  This was a much clearer river that fed the T River.  This was another smaller type of river (a bit bigger than the W River).  The difference here was that this river was in an almost canopy of trees, vines, and ferns.  I was reminded of several jungle movies.  

We climbed down the steep bush slope (through the jungle) and spotted a large pod of very large trout swimming around and feeding subsurface. We positioned ourselves above the pool and I worked a few roll-casts into the pool. We spend a half hour working this pod and I was unable to get a hookup, but enjoyed the site fishing and jungle scenery (glad there are no dangerous snakes in New Zealand).

Finally, we had a couple of hours before dusk (gets dark at 5:30 p.m. in June).  We decided the there are more fish to catch on the W River (where we first fished).  Good call, we catch two or thee more nice sized trout (still reminded that none are as large as the two I LOST this morning - arrrggg).  We then try out another hole a quarter mile up the river from the honey hole and land a final trout.  None less than three pounds in this river and all hovering a few inches on either side of the two-foot mark.

Taking a look at my day fishing the Taupo area of New Zealand, I'd say the trip was more than I expected in most aspects.  The fish were larger than I thought, fought harder than I expected, and were more plentiful than I had hoped.  On the other hand, I would have liked to use a 7 wt. rod and get the chance to get the fish under control before I called it "landed".  I'm all for playing a fish quick, on one occasion Ross netted my trout on a hot run down stream.  The battle wasn't decided by any means.  A couple of other times, the net was also out quicker than I wanted.  Again, he was protecting "his" livelihood.  I understand.  This is the selfish part of me talking.

You win the "I'm bored" contest if you've made it this far.  After these fish, I totally understand "Steelhead fever" as some have put it in this forum.  At some point in the near future, I'll put out some photos and more stories of the Sydney and NZ trip on my web site for folks still interested in hearing about Hobbittown, cave rafting, Maori Haka, and other adventures we had on the trip.