Untracked powder snow, Great snow boarders, a helicopter with a great pilot and this is the result…..
Queenstown has had the coldest and driest months of June and July in its history of recorded weather!! When i am Ski Guiding with Alpine Heliski i often chuckle to myself and think about the spring time when the snow i am skiing on melts and eventually makes it way down into the river systems that sustain all of the Rainbow and Brown Trout we hunt in the Summer time.
I know for a fact that at the bottom of this particular valley where we skiied with Rob Morrison and family and friends there is one such river that is home to some of the best dry fly fishing around.
Once a fisherman, always a fisherman!!
We spend alot of time on the lakes and river valleys spotting fish. Sometimes we forget that there are eyes in the hills and mountains above us. The south island back country is full of wild game that like the trout we hunt are as cunning and can be there one second and gone the next!! Just like knowing how and where to find trout in the rivers and lakes, we reckon we are pretty good at finding some of the wild game that run freely about the mountain ranges of the south island. Gordy Watson and i spend some time checking out whats checking us out when we are on the rivers. We shot some photos of some Fellow Deer that roam the hills not far from where we often go fishing.
Joe, Beth, Katie & Joe jr, were here in Queenstown visiting from Alabama. Winter will often see the lakes glassy calm with scenes you could make a calender out of. I teamed up with Gordy Watson and we had a good look around the top of the lake. We spotted some good fish and had some opportunity but i think the scenery got in the way!!
Yasu Kobayashi from Nagano Japan, stepped up to the plate and delivered some beautiful casts that got instant results.
If there was ever a lesson in casting and playing a fish then Kobayashi-san is the man to watch, and on the river we fished he was definitly the boss.
Using his faithful SCOTT ROD #5 of 10 years the experience of fishing some dream-waters was made even better….. after 9 years of travelling to N.Z to fish Yasu and Kazu finally made it to the top of Lake Wakatipu, after today it won’t be the last.
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..
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.
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..
Gordy Watson with a Greenstone Brown.
Mark La Noue, out visiting N.Z for the first time from Portland (Oregon) and i paid a visit to a river south of Queenstown and introduced ourselves to some local trout.
The drive reminded Mark of some places in the states, and the fact that he grew up in Denver Colarado made him feel pretty much at home hanging out in Queenstown for a few days.
The sky was blue, however the wind was head on and punchy. Armed with his Sage #6 Mark was able to deliver the right casts to get connected with some brown and rainbow trout.
We were well rewarded putting some fish to the net, but had a solid walk to contend with. Was it worth it……………
You bet it was…………………….
