THE FISHING

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We once again visited three great fishing lodges – Cedars on the South Island; and Angler’s Retreat & Poronui Ranch on the North Island.  We had a terrific time at each of the lodges, enjoying some challenging and rewarding fly fishing for rainbow trout and brown trout. 

Fly fishing in New Zealand continues to be like no other place we’ve ever been.  You “stalk” the trout by following your guide as he walks a river bank or the edge of a lake and tries to locate a trout.  The water is gin-clear so it can be done.  Once a fish is spotted, it’s the fisherman’s job to cast to it. While this may sound fairly easy these trout can spook quickly if the fly isn’t presented in a natural manner or the fly line goes over the fish.  Also, with the water so incredibly clear, if the trout sees either the guide or you, it swims away and a new search must begin.  In other words, it’s incredibly demanding!  Your approach and casting must be precise.

As we learned last year, the trout in New Zealand grow quite large.  An average trout is 3lb. – 4lb.; fish of 5lb.’s are not uncommon.  In other fishing locations outside New Zealand, that size fish might be a record trout.  In New Zealand, it’s the standard. However, New Zealand’s fishing treasure is the trout that dreams are made of  - “double digit” beauties – those trout exceeding 10lbs.  Catching one of those on a 5wt. fly rod with a 4lb. tippet is a thrill of a lifetime!  Ed can attest to it since he landed a 12lb. brown last year and hooked into another beautiful brown - as large or larger - this year!

As a beginning aside, this year we had very difficult weather conditions.  New Zealand typically is dry & hot in summer months.  This year, however, we experienced an unusually cold, rainy summer and we had some tough days – one being a total rain-out when we did not fish.  Thankfully, however, at each of the lodges our guides & hosts made the best of these difficult conditions.  As they say, the rain doesn’t bother the fish near as much as the fisherman. That being said, when the rain is heavy and persistent the rivers rise and can become murky.  This makes spotting fish difficult if not impossible.  Also, crossing and wading the rivers in high water can be difficult and sometimes dangerous.  We were forced to hike or fly to the headwaters of many of the rivers where water conditions were lower and better.  However, we did realize how fortunate we were in retrospect after we saw televised footage in Australia of New Zealand floods that  forced evacuations of residents and tourists alike.

We began our fishing at Cedars with Dick & Robyn Fraser.  Here we went out each day via helicopter to fish waters not otherwise accessible.  Not only was the fishing great, but each day’s ride was a great experience too!  We fished with Kyle on the Young and Makaroa Rivers & Wanaka Lake.  We also fished with Dick & Dillon (his chopper pilot) on the Dingle.  We caught lots of rainbows and browns in the 4lb. range with the largest this year being 4.5lb. rainbows caught by each of us.

At Angler’s Retreat, we had the pleasure of being hosted by Ron & Edith Burgin.  Their son, Michael, acted as our primary guide for fishing at Angler’s.  We had some quality fishing despite tough weather days.  We also had the pleasure of doing a helicopter fly-out with Ron.  We landed both browns and rainbows with Ed again getting a 4.5 rainbow.

At Poronui Ranch, we fished with Derek Nees.  Again, he showed us some great fishing.  We fished rivers located on the ranch via vehicle and we also did a couple of helicopter fly-outs.  It was with Derek on the Omairu River that Ed hooked into a monster (Derek estimated “teener” (i.e., in the teens).  Ed figured it to be 10-15 lbs.  However, after a 30 minute battle it went under a huge boulder and we couldn’t move it out and ultimately it broke off.  Oh well, next year!  Ed did land a 7lb. brown that day, his 8th largest.  The day before, Lindy landed her largest rainbow, a 6lb. beauty.  We also want to comment on the lodge itself.   The operation is truly first-class in all respects and Poronui is one of the nicest lodges we've stayed at worldwide.  Eve Reilly & her staff do a wonderful job in making you feel relaxed and at home.  One aspect we really enjoyed is that the fishing guides shared both breakfast & dinner tables with the guests.  It makes for great conversation, lots of fun and everyone gets a sense of belonging to one group. 

In summary, it was a great fishing experience.  We’ll definitely return!!  Remember when looking at the photo’s below, we always “catch & release” so all fish photographed are ready to be caught again.

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CEDARS LODGE
www.cedarslodge.net/

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ANGLER'S RETREAT
www.anglersretreat.co.nz

PORONUI RANCH
www.poronui.com

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