FLY FISHING NEW ZEALAND – AS GOOD AS GOLD!

Leonard Fleming sums up the end of season fly fishing in NZ’s South Island

(Pictures by Leonard Flemming)

The fishing season in New Zealand (South Island) has finally ended (officially on 30 April for most lakes and rivers).  I finished on a high note with some beautiful fish from the Godley Valley (rainbows and browns) and the Oreti River (a spectacular trophy brown trout fishery).  Somehow, I also managed to lure a king salmon, also called Chinook salmon, into taking a Zonker pattern fished on my 6 wt in the Rangitata River.  These fish are huge and incredibly powerful.  They make the long journey from the ocean to spawn in the higher reaches and spring creeks of the larger rivers associated with the East coast (Christchurch side of the island).  With continuously fluctuating water levels, the salmon run came late this season, but was still a sight well worth the effort to witness!  Shoals of big fish (I estimate them between 10 and 30 lb) gather in suitable pools and when spooked, the big black cloud of fish moves as one to shade the entire substrate of the river!  They seem very aggressive and often turn at your flies, but seldom take them.  The fish I hooked was the largest of a pack of 6 sitting at the head of a fast run and accepted a downstream presentation (dead drift) of a heavily weighted Zonker.  At first I thought the hook had snagged on water grass as the line tightened up on the swing, but then the fish turned and took off with me running afterwards for several 100 meters down river, where it eventually ducked under a shallow undercut allowing me to fold the net over its head (and only just fitting!).  Perseverance is the name of the game when salmon fishing, which may result in one of the best fights of your life on fly tackle!

 

A mixed bag

This season has been particularly wet and cold with several snow falls and rivers in flood, which had me driving around like a maniac in search of fishable water.  For at least a month I was forced to explore the lakes in and around the Canterbury area.  I was pleasantly surprised with some of the best sight fishing I have done in my life and certainly the best for trout!  In February I teamed up with Philip Hills (RSA), Darryl Lampert (RSA) and Matt Zilliox (USA) for some mind blowing fishing on Lake Heron and some of Canterbury’s best streams.

 

To start with, we hooked up on the Rangitata River and although windy, the sun was out and the fish were active.  For a few hours we were spoilt with a number of large rainbows, but a gusty downstream wind at noon forced us to move out of the Hakatere Valley and we ended up catching a few smaller browns on the Boyers Stream near Mt. Somers.

Philip Hills with a monster brown from Lake Heron

The next day I guided Philip and Matt on Lake Heron, one of Canterbury’s premier lakes for brown trout.  Perfect weather conditions resulted in a classic days fishing with 12 browns over 20 inches coming out and a land-locked salmon taken by Philip on a tiny dry.

 

New Zealand land-locked salmon taken on a tiny dry fly by Philip Hills

Matt described it as the best sight fishing he’s done in his life!

 

 

Matt Zilliox waving his magic wand to show off some elegant casting poetry

Unfortunately the good weather didn’t last long and rain once again set in to send us on our separate ways, chasing after water safe enough to wade in!  Matt later confirmed with me that one of their expeditions into a remote gorge resulted in the capture of an 11 lb brown by Philip.  Comes to show that those big boys are still around and willing to take a fly, since that was the third double figure trout I had heard of coming out at that point of the season.

 

Early in March I returned to Lake Emily to find the brook char more active than I have ever seen them (the seemingly dead appearance of the lake became a bit clichéd after several visits).  A couple of brookies came to large streamer patterns, including a 4 lb cock fish so colourful it will be hard to beat by any other cold water fish species I know of.

A New Zealand Brook char - odd-looking, but colourful salmonids

Later the same day I was surprised to hook and land a big longfin eel which accepted a Zonker pattern twitched past its nose!  I am not sure which gave the better fight, the brookies or the eel, but one thing is certain, brook trout are by far more attractive (and less slimy!) than eels.  The eels (both shortfin and longfin) are some of the few freshwater fish species indigenous to NZ.  Other species that you may encounter are gobies (bullheads or bullies as named by locals), torrentfish (a small cod-like fish that lives in the fast water of NZ rivers) and several interesting members of the family Galaxidae (Galaxias sp. – named after the galaxy due to their spotted appearance).  Another fish that occurred in West coast rivers is the now extinct NZ grayling (the reason for extinction is unknown).

 

A mutual characteristic of these indigenous fish species is the migration between the sea and freshwater as part of their life cycle.  Bullies, especially the upland bully, are ubiquitous and regularly seen darting amongst shallow rocks with short bursts as they investigate the disturbance caused by a wading angler.  They may be obnoxious and caricature-like by nature, but are great fun to entice with the fly.  A “big” upland bully saved one of my less successful outings for browns, where sight fishing was spoilt by overcast conditions (a reminder of how important sight fishing can be in this country).

 

With the weather constantly turning, I managed to figure out a pattern with the help of rainfall charts on www.metservice.com.  The fronts usually hit the South coast, head up the West coast and dissipate up north towards the Tasman district and Nelson (Marlborough area); the Southern Alps form a large enough barrier to block most of the bad weather from spoiling central-South and Canterbury rivers.  Some of the smaller rivers and especially spring creeks, of which many are tributaries of large braided rivers or feeder streams of lakes, clear up quickly after rain and provide excellent fishing, sometimes for very large browns!

 

I think I died and went to heaven…

After fishing most recommended rivers (which are also the most popular ones) I started focusing on the headwaters of large lakes.  Most central South lakes are fed by large braided rivers, often of glacial origin, which may hold trout, but it is the spring creeks filtering into these systems that are really worth exploring.  This is where I have to mention that Google Earth is a wonderful thing.  One could spend hours investigating the upper reaches of rivers and locate the best looking spots before departing on a fishing mission.

 

On one particular outing I accidentally came across a gem of a spring creek holding both rainbows and browns.  I spent six hours targeting trophy fish and ended up with a tally of 7 memorable fish from this tiny creek that had nothing but cows and endless grasslands in its surroundings.

 

 

A brown trout holding in the icy, crystal clear waters of New Zealand

 

On a return trip in the same area, I hiked 11 kilometers to reach a tiny up country stream running steel blue through steep cliffs of slate.  Fishing my way there, it was already 3 in the afternoon when I stepped into the cold water of the North East Gorge Stream.

 

The cold waters of the North East Gorge Stream

I walked a high bank when I spotted the first rainbow holding in a shallow pocket of icy blue water, the fish standing out like a slab of turquoise on the light substrate.  The trout boldly accepted the dry, a large Parachute Adams, on the first presentation and screamed down stream through a 1 km section of fast water exiting the gorge.  Tramping my way across uncomfortable terrain littered with large boulders, net clasped under one arm and rod held high by the other, I managed to catch up with the trout just to slip it in the net as the barbless hook pulled out.  After a brilliant battle, I was relieved to release a beautiful rainbow cock fish of over 6 lb.  I covered as much ground as the remaining daylight allowed and fished my way into a narrow, steep and shaded gorge.  The pools were deep cobalt blue in the shade and although well camouflaged, fish stood out on the riverbed consisting of soft grey gravel.  Every single trout came to the dry fly and in such a way one could bet they hadn’t seen humans since the last generation of fly anglers.  I was spoilt rotten, beyond belief…It really felt like I died and went to heaven!

 

Oreti River brown trout taken at nightfall by Leonard Flemming

 

But the story doesn’t end here…The following morning I was up at 3:30 am and took a 4 hour drive down South to the Oreti River.  Prior to departure I had to scratch off a layer of ice from the inside of my windscreen just to see the road before me.  I reached the upper reaches of the Oreti by 9:00 am by which time the sun had already popped up from behind the snow-capped hills to cast a yellow sheen on the white-frozen landscape.  The banks of the Oreti are very exposed, consisting of wet grasslands and mossy flats, complicating the stalking of trout.  I hiked 10 km’s downstream and set up after crossing the icy water to shoot a cast at the first sighted brown.  To be honest, that particular fish did not respond very well to my presentation, neither did the next; or the next...Circumstances had the better of me, the river had been heavily fished over the season (one could tell by the perfect human pathway running alongside the river) and the trout were all BIG and terribly nervous.  I ate lunch kneeling behind a large brown, holding in ridiculously shallow water of a small run, simply observing its movement.  There was no movement at all.  These fish were clearly not actively feeding and I had to change my approach.  I waited a while longer before placing a dry and nymph rig gently in the estimated feeding line of the trout.  Surprisingly, the fish snapped out of its siesta and glided towards my flies and engulfed the nymph.  A gentle lift of my rod tip and the battle was on!  Minutes later I lifted an 8 lb brown from the water.

 

Ecstatic with my catch, I spent some time photographing the well conditioned brown before sliding it back into its pool.  The higher I fished the smaller the river flowed and eventually perfect pools and slots dried up with fish, which had me scratching my head.  Suspicion became reality as the sun started to drop behind the hills and the water was engulfed by the shade of dusk.  Earlier the afternoon, I had decided to stick around a particularly good looking section of the river to see whether trout would appear from the undercuts with sunset.  It didn’t take long for the first trout to show, a huge brown which casually swam out from underneath a large boulder to rise for mayflies hatching in the evening light.  I missed its take and quickly moved on to the next likely looking pocket (a season in NZ has taught me not to waste time on regret).

 

As expected, yet another trophy brown was sitting in a back eddy of a small pool sipping mayflies off the surface.  It was already dark when I felt the take and set the hook to take on a battle in lamp light.  What an experience!  Yes, I did land that fish and I am not sure how big it was, but big enough to make me a very happy man!  The following day I returned downstream on the Oreti to land my last fish of the season, a beautifully spotted 6 lb brown.  In three days I had covered over 55 km’s of breathtaking scenery on foot and finished the season on a high note with a tally of ten fish from three different rivers.

 

All in all it was an incredible season in New Zealand and certainly a dream come true.  If you find yourself hooked on fly fishing or dedicated to trout, New Zealand is a must!  Due to the diversity in salmonids, their numbers and size, as well as the number of rivers they populate, close proximity and beautiful natural scenery of these rivers, NZ is inarguably the best trout destination in the world.

 

Rumour has it that next season might see the beech trees in bloom, which means that the mice population might explode once again to give rise to NZ’s famous “mouse season”.  This sporadic phenomenon is especially noticeable in the Marlborough area, or so I’ve heard…

 

For more information about fishing South Island, New Zealand, keep an eye on www.tourettefishing.com for affordable packages to this stunning destination.