The last 2 weeks of weather have been exact opposites, rain one day, sunshine the next, snow on the tops today. That is what you get when you live on an Island surrounded by ocean currents of different temperatures, add to that the southern alps rising straight out of the ocean and it is the perfect recipe for a mixture of wild weather.

Some people go to an office every day, but when your office is the mountains and hills and the lakes and rivers then the weather plays a major role in what the office is going to look like?

The weather reports sometimes don’t mean a thing until you open the curtains and look out the window when you wake up.

One morning i woke up and looked outside, grabbed Jazz and we made a RAINBOW CONNECTION..

New Zealand has no dangerous animals, i mean we have no snakes, no bear no tigers.. what we do have is the weather and if you go back country and are no prepared for 4 seasons then that is one thing that will catch you out!!

Reading a weather map is a skill that is handy, but even then this place is so changeable!! The plan was to go back country by helicopter but looking at the weather things were looking touch and go. We drove south to get away from the North Wester and found some fishing on the Apirima. We spotted a number of fish and managed to time it right for a mayfly hatch. Shawn caught his first fish on a dry fly, made the perfect cast and timed the strike just right, and then landed the brown by net, another first. Worth the travel from Sydney Australia i think.

We are still watching the weather for our chance to go back country, will keep you posted…

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Bob and suzie were booked to take the Dart River Jet boat from 12.45pm. We had done a weather check the night before and found our window of opportunity was a morning fishing excursion.

I picked them up from Blanket Bay at 8.30 and we drove 20 minutes to the Routeburn River. There was evidence of the last weather system that went through days earlier as logs some up to 2 tonnes were no longer where i had remembered them and were now 40 -50 metres down river!!

Despite this there were fish to be spotted and we cast at a few with Bob hooking 2 and landing 1, Suzie had a major battle with a good Rainbow and after 15 minutes of moving up and down the run a few times done a mighty run and took the fly with him. It was hard to leave the river but there was a  jet boat to catch and another adventure to live.

That was a half of a day out on some Dream-water making the most of our beautiful country… living the dream..

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Rick, Norma, Hayley and Devon Brock made some more time to go fishing, off we went to the mouth of the Greenstone. The day was perfect with the cloud burning off by mid day and the sun shining bright. The river was still running a little high above normal but the fish were there.

I say the fish were there but they weren’t going crazy to jump on our flys!! We hooked fish and landed a few and over all had a great day out on some Dream-waters.

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Another family passing the passion of fly fishing on..

We flew to a special high country river that presents a challenge to any fisherman. Flying out across the southern alps is something special that has to be experienced while you are in N.Z. And to land beside a river that is full of rainbow trout is a dream come true.

That is what we did with the brock family from Toronto.. See for yourself what the pictures say..

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Gordy Watson with a Greenstone Brown.