Laurent emailed me June of 2015 to inquire about a multi-day New Zealand fly fishing adventure for mid February 2016 . After several emails and a couple of phone calls a fairly loose 5 day itinerary was formed taking in several different fishing regions all of which offered different types of water ranging from larger braided river systems to smaller spring creeks and mid sized freestone river's and stream's . When planning these types of fly fishing trips you need to be a little flexible and prepared to move around these regions , as more often than not our choice of river or stream each day is decided upon the day or night before hand based on the following day/s weather forecast . In Laurent's case the forecast for the week he was to fish with me was for severe gale force winds in exposed places.....not ideal for fly fishing ! So smaller sheltered rivers with gorge sections and willowed rivers and streams were going to be our focus , rivers that offered us some protection from the strong Northwester that was forecast for the coming week.

The weather for day one was looking to be the best out of the 5 that Laurent was here so we headed for the Southland region to fish the world famous Mataura river , a river that has good numbers of brown trout in the 3-6lb range fish that will test every ounce of your skill and patience , fish that don't tolerate sloppy casts or presentations !

After a fun filled first day in which Laurent hooked several nice fish on a mix of small CDC dries and unweighted nymphs , we headed for our next destination further east . The choices of river over the 4 days as mentioned were comprised of rivers that were heavily willow lined or had tight gorge sections offering us shelter from the severe winds that were forecast .

Laurent into a good brown in a tight gorge section of water on a favorite stream , this particular day the trout we're keyed in on cicadas and he experienced some of the best cicada fishing on this stream that i have seen in several years !

Fish are in exceptional condition this year due to the larger number of terrestrial insects that are about due to the very hot summer we have been experiencing this year.

A sight we as fly fisherman love seeing ! A large fish sitting under a foam line sipping dries off the top , Laurent hooked this fish on a cicada pattern but unfortunately lost it under the large boulder.