Something Different For Opening Day.

For as long as I can remember I have always headed to smaller rivers and streams to sight fish on the 1st of October but this year I decided to change it up. Ive been bitten badly by the double handed fly fishing bug this past winter and decided to swing flies with a couple of mates on the Waitaki river this opening day. Trev and I left a 6am to meet good mate and fellow guide Will Spry in Omarama before heading down to Kurow and then onto the river from there. It was a bleak cold morning and the fishing was pretty slow for the first couple of hours,so we changed locations and drove down stream anoher few km’s to the next acess. The first big pool I nailed a nice wee 4lb brownie and Trev hooked a big bow that unfortunately came unstuck.

A well conditioned brown trout taken on the swing my first for the new season !

We stopped for a quick lunch break then again moved down stream to a new spot, the other 2 boys decided to swap over to the single handed rods and try there luck spotting along the edges, drop offs and riffles further upstream as Will who knows the river pretty well reckoned a hatch was on the cards mid arvo. I had nailed a couple of nice fish swinging and was determined to stick with the double hander and it paid off with 2 more solid browns and couple of break offs right out in front of where we had parked our trucks. Trev and Will arrived back about an hour and a half later and had also had success with a couple on the dry.

Trev with his first fish of the new season on a dry ! Beautiful specimen and mad all the better fooling him on a dry fly during a small late arvo hatch.

All up a fun day out with great mates fishing some new water and having a few laughs !

feel free to contact me with any questions you may have and I still have some good dates available over Feb and March if your heading to New Zealand and looking for a fly fishing guide.

Tightlines

Paul