Ronan's Report

It’s hard to find the time to write this now that full on fishing has commenced. I’m wrecked after a very tough gorge.. ready for bed wrecked and tomorrow will be all go once again. Dad arrived on Tuesday and we fished yesterday and today. Yesterday was on an easy river with lots of 2-3lb rainbows and browns. A good place to get the NZ fundamentals sharpened up. Dad did that successfully. Today was more like a military training exercise through a gorge. There was a lot more water in it than 5 weeks ago and that made it seriously hard going. Scrambling through dense bush, deep crossings and rock climbing was the order of the day. As the day progressed more emphases was put on getting out of the gorge than fishing and some opportunities were missed as a result. We had a couple hard earned fish.

Chris Dore, Greg Milo Elliot and myself spent a day chasing rainbows and browns. I did no good but the lads had a couple each. I lost a very big brown on a streamer and Chris missed a big fella on a dry… Twice!

I met up with Camo Guy a few days ago as planned. We fished on one of my favourite waters. Guy fished for half the day a took pictures for the other half, unfortunately I don’t have his photo’s! I do have my own though. I had a spectacular day! I made very few mistakes and caught lots of big fish.

I picked up John O Malley’s Nissan Terrano from Mossburn and drove it to Fairlie to meet Dad on Tuesday.  There seems to be a problem with fuel consumption. 400ks cost 130nzd. I might have solved the problem simply by putting the correct air pressure in the tires! I’ll know for sure when I take it for another decent drive in 5 weeks..

Kevin Alexander and Myself took our boat “Daltona” out for a spin last night. She is still going like a rocket and a pleasure to fish from.

Dad and I are going to fish a lake tomorrow before heading to Buscot Backpackers tomorrow night. Guy will be there too. We may drink some wine and eat crackers with fancy blue cheese.

Ronan.. (stuntman)

The weather has been shithouse as they say over here for the passed while. Some serious gales (blowing the roof off our neighbours house, over ours and landing on another neighbours house!) and torrential rain blowing out all the rivers. Perfect blue sky days were regular enough but most rivers were too high and coloured to fish. I had some great fishing  before the weather broke with Chris Dore (NZ’s #1 guide!!) and Fraser Hocks. We had many fish in the 2-4lb bracket on small nymphs not too far from Queenstown. It’s important not to give away exact locations. There’s plenty water for everyone so there’s no point putting undue pressure on the specific rivers. Explore. It’s more fun anyway!

I had some very enjoyable lake edge fishing near Glenorchy targeting cruising browns with woolly buggers in shallow water. Spot the fish, leave the fly lifeless on the bottom and strip it away when the fish is in attacking range. The result is a manic chase usually ending in a strike. Fun.

Tomorrow Mark Adamson and I are heading towards Te Anau where any amount of water awaits. The Redcliff also awaits… My joint number one bar in the world!

Happy Halloween!

Ronan..