Fly fishing in New Zealand - Hosted Week 1 Report

The past week has been spent down in Southland New Zealand fishing the mighty waters of the district for its wild brown trout. Southland has many famous rivers with fish good average size of around 3-4lb.  In the summer this region is particularly famous for its dry fly fishing with willow grubs and tussock cicadas forming the main prey for these trout. These are easily imitated by the fly angler and provide exciting dry fly fishing requiring precise presentation. The willow grubbing fish in particular test the anglers casting skills to the limit.

The clients on this trip managed to experience both of these unique dry fly fishing experiences with many first's. Ian Swan landed his first New Zealand trout on his first morning's fishing which also proved to be a personal best - his largest brown trout.

I spent a day with Paul Procter on one of the regions famous rivers and we had a blue skyway which would normally mean at this time of year that the fish would be feeding hard on cicadas. However the cold January had delated the insects activity and the fish did not even raise an eyebrow out our imitations. Luckily they were feeding hard subsurface on Paul's nymph imitations fooled many fish. The quality of several of these fish (2 fish over 7lb) were superb. We finished off the day with two fish off the top with a blowfly pattern.

While the fish weren't on cicada early in the week on our last day in Southland the weather ensured they were. I lovely warm New Zealand summers day saw the fish out and on taking cicadas off the top. There is nothing better than watching a large brown trout sat in a feeding lane taking these large insects. They will move a long way, often several meters,  in order to take their prey. We found many fish this day feeding in this way and John and Sarah Hodgkin both managed their personal best trout of 6lb and 7lb respectively.

Today we move up to the McKenzie District where the cicada fishing should be in full swing.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON FLY FISHING IN NEW ZEALAND PLEASE CALL US ON +44 (0) 1621743711 OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.FLYODYSSEY.CO.UK OR EMAIL US AT: enquiries@flyodyssey.co.uk