I recently took my son Louie to fly fish the Mataura river for his first time. The fishing season opened back on the 1st of October and he’s been slowly honing his casting and river skills with the aim of hitting the Mataura river late season, a time of year when long fine leaders, tippets and small film flies are required to fool the fussiest of brown trout !

We decided early April to head down and followed the weather forecast closely, deciding to head to the Mataura on the first Saturday of the month. The forecast for the day was for light winds, slightly over cast with the day time temp reaching a balmy 21 degrees Celsius around midday perfect conditions for this time of the year !

We chose a beat I knew well, rigged up our rods, tied on fresh leaders and fine tippet headed off for the day full of enthusiasm as to what lay ahead. The first we found 4 nice fish sipping off the surface in the foam line. Louie got into position and laid out a beautiful cast too which the first fish rose and sipped down his tiny CDC emerger ….wait for it I mumbled…..STRIKE ! …and he was on. After a good5 minute fight and a near netting blunder from Dad (don’t worry he let me know about it LOL)… he was holding his first Mataura brown. A beautiful fit Jack that was just under 6lb ! A quick grip and grin and the fish was safely released to fight another day. He managed another 3 or 4 well conditioned fish over the course of the day and even let me have a few shots LOL.

All up a very successful, fun first up day on a river that has brought many a skilled angler to there knee’s in tears on many an occasion !

The borders here in New Zealand have reopened to our Australian friends and we look forward to seeing them back on our shores in the near future to enjoy our rivers and streams !