I recently guided father and son team Jim and David for 4 days in the Central Otago region.
 Jim had just recently recovered for major surgery and decided it was now or never for he and his son David to book their bucket list dream trip of fly fishing around New Zealand. I met the guys at a designated meeting spot and we headed off our NZ fly fishing road trip. The weather for the 4 days was a mixed bag of the usual spring time conditions we get here in the South Island of New Zealand in late November with wind and the odd showery day. The guys wanted to fish some smaller streams so we headed into the headwaters of a couple of streams that held both brown and rainbow trout in the 3-6lb mark with the occasional bigger fish some years !

Tom and Mark arrived in New Zealand after have spent the past 2 months filming in Antarctica for an upcoming wildlife doco. They had a stop over here in NZ on the way home to the UK and decided to stay for a 2 week fly fishing road trip around the lower the South Island. We arranged to meet in location "X" and spend a couple of days exploring some local streams and also to get the guys up to speed with our style of fishing here in New Zealand so as they could fish on there own for the rest of their stay.

Finding Clear water over the past week or so has been tough at times , we found fish stacked up along the edges where small spring fed tributaries entered into the main river today , many of the spring creeks also had good numbers of fish sheltering in them after a few weeks of big water in the main river.

We progressed up stream slowly , carefully fishing all the likely water paying special attention to the drop offs and seams. Matt dropped a big fish a couple of pools up , he had too much slack in his line,when the fish ate his nymph and his indicator shot down he had to much line to pick up before he could get a good hook set in the trouts jaw. After some ribbing and banter from Pudge we moved on and came to a big pool with a shallow tail out , there was a good fish swinging in the current , a quick fly change to a dry- dropper set up was made so as to not spook the fish with a bulky indicator and double nymph rig. Manics guide chute has become my number one dry-dropper fly as it will suspend a small or well weighted nymph under neath and is very visible as and indicator in faster water. Matt got into position and cast ahead of the fish by a meter or so , the fish moved across slightly and took his small suspended nymph ...game on ! After a 5 min tug of war we had a beautiful 6.5lb brown trout in the net.

I may have created a monster but as a friend has just remarked to me "the world needs more of these types of monsters" ha ha ha so true. Louie said twice today how much more fun it was to be out fishing with me than sitting playing Ipad games or watching TV so a win all round !

Despite some recent rain and a little snow which had fallen recently the river was in pretty good shape , high but clear. Some usually deep holes that held fish were filled in so we had to walk a little until we found some fish. We eventually came to a deep pool that held a good fish and with a little help from Dad, Louie managed to cast his fly well up ahead of a nice Rainbow Trout that was swinging in the current which didn't hesitate to lift slightly and eat his nymph.

A good mate and I recently visited a favourite Central Otago stream well known for its well conditioned colourful brown trout. The Manuherika river is a main tributary of the Clutha river and an important spawning river in the region.

The river was clear when I arrived but as the day passed it coloured up slightly due to the melting snow in the surrounding mountains which is not uncommon on this wee stream. Fish were mainly holding in the pools and were a bit sluggish and not really feeding , I managed to fool a couple early on then it was pretty slow from then on in until I came across a good brown trout in a deep pool that was hanging off to the side in some slower water which didn't hesitate to eat my nymph on the first drift.

Pools are the deep water areas of a river and usually form where a river or stream's gradient levels out and slows down the water flow resulting in a slower-deeper body of water forming that then widens out into a pool. Reading the water is a matter of recognizing the different types of water in a river or stream and where trout will generally be in each type of water. A trout will always seek out it's basic requirements of safety from predators , shelter from strong currents-flows and food, all of which are provided in a deep pool. Pools can be broken down into 3 sections , these are the head of the pool , the belly of the pool and finally the tail of the pool .

It’s a mid-price point fly rod that delivers all the bells and whistles for under the $1000 mark. The FLEX incorporates many of the new innovative  design and technology aspects that are found in the award winning Scott Radian and Meridan rods. Each rod is hand made from start to finish in their shop in Montrose Colorado so no short cuts have been taken in the making of this quality new rod series.

Brown trout are native to Europe and were first introduced into New Zealand in the late 1860s from British stock that was first established in Tasmania Australia. The colour pattern of brown trout varies with their habitat. Sea-run and lake fish tend to be silvery with brown and olive spots of varying intensity, whereas river-dwelling fish are darker in colouration with brown and red spots, the latter being surrounded by paler halos. These red spots are particularly prominent on small river fish. .Brown trout are primarily a freshwater species, but can spend time in the sea.Brown trout occur virtually everywhere in New Zealand south of Auckland.

When conditions turn nasty and spotting trout becomes impossible, either due to surface disturbance from the wind and or high cloud that's blocking out the sun light , hunt out an elevated rocky out crop or bank from which to sit and scan the surrounding lake edges. The elevation will help cut out the glare caused through low light and will also help with the lake surface chop, a stretch of water that was seemingly impossible to see into and spot fish 5 minutes earlier has now come to life with cruising trout!

A beautiful stretch of lake edge that was partially sheltered from the NW , this stretch produced the most hook ups for the day. It was perfect as it had a stony bottom that stretched out over to a weed bed and then over a deep drop off. I watched several fish cruise in from the deeper water onto the weed beds to then chase bullies along the stony bottom almost beaching themselves in the shallows as the bullies dashed for the shelter of the shallow edges !

Spring time fly fishing around the Lake Wanaka shoreline is something I really look forward to each season. By mid to late August there are plenty of post spawning Brown trout cruising the shallow stony margins of our Southern lakes in search of bullies and dragon fly nymphs. While most fish didn't hesitate to chase down and eat our bully imitations , the odd fish would rush over to inspect our flies then turn away quickly only to then have another inspection before deciding something wasn't quite right and speeding off for cover.

Morning and evenings seemed to be the best time to catch them from my experience, they are usually found in large schools near the surface and if you see good numbers of birds dive bombing the surface for bait you can bet that Kahawai will be close by ! They are very mobile and can be there one day and gone the next , always on the move following bait fish up and and down the coast.

Jeremy with a thumper of a fish that put up an epic fight , these fish will put on even more condition over the next few months as they gorge themselves on the white bait that will begin to move into rivers and streams of the West Coast region.

More and more now I am tying my streamers for swinging on my Switch rod with a stinger hook attached to them. When swinging flies downstream many fish will chase your fly across the current into the edges and hit your fly from behind, most streamer patterns these days have longer marabou and rabbit style tails to create movement and life likeness which trout will sometimes nip at so having a stinger hook set well back towards the end of the tail helps increase your hook up rate.

We are very lucky in the Wanaka region to have several sections of river open through the winter months that are great to swing streamers on. After a stop off at the Hawea cafe for a Brekky pie ( the best pie ever! IMO) a coffee and a couple of cheese rolls topped with loads butter we wer'e on the road again. We headed to the Makarora river and drove down a dirt 4WD track to the confluence of the Makarora and Wilkin rivers , we are fortunate enough to have the section from the confluence down to the lake open all season

Queenstown is regarded as the adventure capital of New Zealand and offers a wide variety of attractions over both the winter and summer months .It has 2 world renowned ski fields on its door step with both Coronet Peak and The Remarkables ski fields both only a short drive from the centre of town , and then also Cardrona ski field just over the other side of the Crown Range about 45mins away. Queenstown offers accommodation of all types from high boutique lodges right through to budget back packer and every thing in-between ! Queenstown is nestled on the shores of Lake Wakatipu a large glacial lake that is aproximately 400m deep, 80km long and 300m above sea level, it is an unusual ' 'S' shape and it is surrounded by some of the most stunning scenery to be found in New Zealand. Lake Wakatipu holds both brown, rainbow trout as well as quinnat salmon of around 1-2kg. Each season anglers land 10+ lb fish from the lake and from the mouths of several of the in-flowing streams and around the shallower deltas. Lake Wakatipu is fed by several in-flowing rivers , with the largest being the Dart and Rees river's at the head of the lake near the small township of Glenorchy. On the western side of the lake there are the Lochy ,Von and Greenstone rivers all of which offer the typical 'hike in' back-country style of fly fishing that New Zealand is famous for