So far, this has been a good winter season. The Clutha has been the best in a few years. Still not great but way better than the last 2 winters – which were shite. That’s encouraging. Most days out have produced some decent results but the big fish are still nowhere to be seen. I believe the larger fish (5.5lb plus) are running as early as March and by the time me and the other winter anglers get to the river in May, they’re nowhere to be seen. If you don’t hit these fish on the run, it seems we’re not likely to get a shot at them at all. That’s my take on it anyway.
Myself and Jeff did our thing with Nick Reygaert in another episode of Pure Fly NZ. It’s always great to take on an episode with Nick and Jeff. We just go fishing – and often somewhere totally new! All the fun of fishing is still there, even with a camera on us. There’s no pressure – we just let it happen and it generally does. I guess there’s been a learning curve to get to this stage. You can’t force it – the harder you try, the less likely you are of getting a good result (I had to learn this – Nick already knew of course!!). It seems to be one of the few times in a season where Jeff and I actually fish together so that’s another bonus. I’m looking forward to seeing what Nick comes up with after the edit. I won’t give too much away but we certainly kept the best til last!
It’s been a great winter to catch up some good friends on the water too. I’ve had some cracking days out with Wesley, Conor, Matt and Chris. The results are well documented in the photos below.
In other news, I’ve been laid up for a while with a pretty bad injury. Recovery will take a while and fishing will have to wait at least another week or 10 days. I also have covid but to my great surprise I’m almost completely asymptomatic. After 2 dreadful flus this winter, I expected covid to kick my arse, but it didn’t – so I’ll take that bit of luck!
That’s all for now. Feel free to get in touch about winter guiding or trips next season. Contact me ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.
Here is a link to my fly patterns on Fulling Mill and this is my latest piece for the their blog.
Tight lines.. Ronan..
The mouth of the Manuherikia – usually inaccessible in winter.With the Clutha low enough to access the mouth, it opened up some nice but all too brief fishing opportunities!Adalines creations with daddies help!A day afloat with Jeff..Launching the old boat with the old truck..Windy, but a nice winters day..Heading across the lake..Good rain gear in essential. Hard to look past Simms.Setting up for the first drift..Into one!A nice rainbow on the Bruiser.One of a few for Jeff. Jeff had to go at 3, I went back out for a while more..I just love being afloat..Meanwhile, back in Ireland, my dad is catching and releasing some super grilse.Out with Chris for the day!My nymphs and a few emergency eggs!Fishing the braids..Into a decent bow.Changing fly..Bow and arrow – so useful!Tea time!Chris blind fishes a likely drop-off.A healthy bow..Change of tactics..Fish of the day for Chris..A few of my streamers ready to do business.Wesley and his new boat!Feck all room in it but a very versatile and economical boat.Wesley.“The awful” my friend, Marcus aptly named it.. Those are teeth marks!Out with Conor for the day.. Fishing was challenging but great.Conor into one..One for me! This one will feed the gang.I love what the polarising filter does here.Filming another episode of Pure Fly NZ with Nick and Jeff.A lovely location....with plenty trout!One of many super trout for Jeff!A good fish for me on the Green Machine.This super fish took a size 12 hotspot under an indicator.The end of 2 great days..Another episode in the bag – will be available online in September approx.A day out with Wesley..One on the Green Machine to start the day..Wesley into one..Working a seam..One from a grassy bank..Locked and loaded for the first float of the winter season.Matt – ready to rock!Away we go with the necessary tools.Pulled up to fish a braid.teatime.A stunning big riffle simply had to produce..And it did, this one on the deadly Bruiser.5lb bow – so strong! This made the day.about to release him..The convergence of two flows – often a hotspot but they can be tricky to fish.
Between 2002 and 2011 I fished the majority of every NZ season. Total freedom. I’d work in Ireland during the NZ winter and save as much as I could for the next trip to NZ. After moving to NZ full time in 2011, much of the freedom continued – I just had to fit the fishing around work. As a single man I’d fish every weekend, public holiday and day off throughout all seasons. Things are different now. My wife and 2 kids are now my priority. It’s amazing how quickly time passes and I’m enjoying every minute with them. Recently I got a window to go away and fish myself for 3 days. I really don’t remember when I had this last! Guiding is different, I’m talking personal personal fishing time. Mark was on board to join me right away as we were trying to put a trip together anyway. Next I thought I’d ask a few of the other lads. 4 of us ended up hitting the road for 3 days… I forgot how great the freedom of being on the road fishing feels. That was the drug for 9 years of NZ seasons before I decided to live here. Of course I still fish a lot, a few days a week I’ll get out for a fish. Even if it’s just a few hours. But it’s so hard now to get away over night with my 2 little beauties to look after.
We had 3 brilliant days of fishing. We broke up in different groups each day and covered small streams, stillwaters and rivers. It was a nice mix of tried and trusted and totally new water. One of the exploration days yielded a superb find. A piece of water that I cant wait to get back to with better conditions. Also an excellent guiding option. The highlight of the 3 days for me was a stillwater that I used to fish a lot many years ago. Kevin (Shotgun) first took me there in about 2004. I have so many great memories of the place since then. I had magic fishing on it with my dad – some of our best memories of fishing together over here actually. I also fished it with Chris Dore, Bob Wyatt, Tonio, Fraser and now Wesley. Early season access has always been hard to get with lambing but we were just lucky on our day that they had moved the ewes into the next field and the farmer was happy to let us through. About the fishing – Wesley went left and I went right. Numbers were less than in the past but still plenty to keep us focused. We each landed a few of the most beautiful trout an angler can can catch. Sight fishing with a dry dropper accounted for most. When we were almost finished on it, I changed to a double nymph rig to fish some deep water blind. I moved 3 before landing another stunner.. That was the icing on the cake. I have to say, I’m delighted and relieved to have my HT6 again. It’s been cursed that rod! It keeps getting broken – not manufacture error I should say – just stupit shit keeps happening to it! I feel like the curse is now over and I’ll be able to enjoy this fabulous rod again. If not, I have a back up. Ha! Take that, curse!
Part of the craic on a trip like this is getting into the pub at the end of the day for feed and a schather of pints. I rarely look past the steak option and the beer was good. The pub was quiet but 4 like-minded fellas will always have a good time!
3 days, good friends, lots of craic and plenty trout. Now I need another fix!
In other news, I’ve had a few days guiding – delighted to get them under the circumstances. All very successful days with lots to the net each day. The best result had to be from Angela, who after a casting lesson landed three 5lb browns. That was her first day with a fly rod! Pretty amazing result. Great to see Brian again after his 11lber last season. Also lovely to get out with Sam and Fred again. Last time we fished together Sam broke in 4 big trout. On our recent day she made no mistakes! They both landed some magnificent trout. I know Chuan will be jealous..
Pure Fly NZ has moved off mainstream tv and onto youtube. This makes it very easy to access where ever you are in the world! Myself and Jeff had some super fishing in our episode and Nick was right there to capture it all. You can watch it, and all the other episodes from series 4 for free on youtube. Here’s a link to our episode.
If you’re in NZ and interested in some guided fly fishing, feel free to drop me a line to book a trip before you can’t travel at all!! Visit my website or email ronan@sexyloops.com
My nymphs have been accounting for nearly all the river fish and some of the lake fish in the gallery below. If you’re thinking about stocking up for the NZ season, these are my tried and trusted range of weighted nymphs. You can check them out here.
Tight lines, Ronan..
Great fun on the lake in September..
Superb mid-range rods. If you’re looking for a versatile rod for NZ, the Primal Raw 7 is a great option.
Great conditioned fish and plenty of them. I wasn’t hanging out for October 1!
September lake edge cruisers loved my little Claret nymph from Fulling Mill.
No skinny fish which early season is often related to.
Perfect!
Great day guiding Brian. He landed 7 super trout using a range of tactics.
September sight fishing..
Have to fill a few gaps here for the new season.
A box full of my nymphs available from Fulling Mill. Just put Ronan’s nymphs in the search box.
My dads NZ dry. An excellent all round pattern.
Ready for battle.
There’s a few things I need but this will keep me going!
Ready.
First fish of the season!
Mark and I landed 6. Hard to get good pics because we were wading out! A magnificent opening day.
First guide day of the season ..
After a casting lesson Angela landed three 5lbers. An amazing result!
The nicest of the 3 fives.
Out with Samantha and Fred..
A brilliant fish for Sam. Her best of the day.
Perfect conditions.
6lbs for Fred.
Hooked about a dozen, landed 8 great fish.
Reunited with my HT6..
3 days away with Wesley, Mark and Brayden.
Brilliant fishing!
The HT6 is the best 6 weight out there..
Another one goes back..
Brayden borrowed my back up HT6.
Brayden onto one.
End of a great day!
Day 2. The best weather day.
A brilliant fish in the net.
Blind fishing a double nymph rig with the HT6.
Years since I fished here. So many great memories.
The most beautirul trout live here.
6.5lbs of perfection – and strong!
A super moment..
Perfcetion for Wesley.
After the backwater we went up river.
Some beauties for Wesley.
Stunning..
The farther we went the wilder it got!
Lovely.
Long days already and we were in no rush to turn around.
Change flies.
Just seeing a river is so satisfying.
Popped in to fish this backwater. Got one. Lots of potential.
The last pool before the hike out.
One last view of the backwater..
What a day..
This lead to quite a headache on day 3! Might be why I got no photos!!
From about mid July, trout start repopulating the lakes in large numbers. Spawning for most browns and many rainbows has finished. This is a great time to fish the lakes. The trout are keen to pile on condition, so the fishing can be superb. You’ll pick up some skinny fish but it’s quite amazing just how good the condition is on the vast majority of these winter fish. I’ve been out quite a bit making the most of it. When conditions permit, I’ve had some great sight fishing along the edges. When the wind has been up, my possum & marabou buggers have been doing really well. I’ve been fishing another method too. Something new for me.
This method is simple. I have fished it before but never quite like my current approach to it. It’s a dry / dropper rig fished blind – okay, so nothing new there – but for me there is. Normally when the wind gets up and I can’t sight the edges I turn to a bugger or small streamer. I love this method so it was hard for me to change. I always thought that nymphs fished blind under a dry in the wind would work. In fact, I knew it would work, but would it be better than buggers or streamers? Probably not – but maybe. Recently – finally – I put it to the test, both shore based and drifting. Like any blind fishing, it’s not just chuck and chance. I’m always looking for structure, contrast, weed beds, sand patches etc. The trick is to cover as much likely water as possible, as efficiently as possible. so, while drifting for example, I fish a relatively short line. Long enough so that fish near the fly won’t see the boat. Keeping it short gives me the great advantage of being able to pick it up and lay it down with just one false cast. Speed can be key here. 3 or 4 false casts and you might drift past a good weed patch, or spook fish by carrying too much line for too long. I don’t leave the fly sitting for long. About 10 to 20 seconds, then pick it up an place it somewhere else. I’m always aware of the speed of the drift versus the water I want to cover. A drogue is on the cards. It’s a very involved way to fish. It requires focus because you must have your fly in likely water all the time to stack the odds in your favour. Thats what blind fishing is come to think of it. I’ve mainly been fishing 2 to 4 feet of water with this method. At this depth I know I can get my fly to “likely trout cruising depth” quickly. I’ve been using my size 14 dark nymphs with a 2mm bead to suit this depth, but there’s loads of scope to take it further. Bigger, more buoyant dries holding heavier mymphs on longer droppers for deeper water. maybe more than one nymph? This method really suits boat fishing because you can find large expances of ideal water and work it. Thats not generally as easy from the bank but it’s a good tactic on the shore too. The advantage of the dry fly indicator over direct nymphing is the static or sinking presentation and the indication to strike. Typical to most methods, I’ve had days where everything sticks and days where I lost a lot of fish.
To weigh it up against bugger fishing – you’ll cover more fish with buggers but they won’t all eat. You’ll cover fewer fish with this dry / dropper method but more will eat (in my opinion!) I think the only way to test it is to fish against Jeff Forsee on buggers while I use the dry dropper. That said it, the dry / dropper method suits both anglers fishing it because bugger fishing is quite dispuptive even to the water outside the anglers focus. There would have to be some rules to give both methods equal footing. I’m sure Jeff will be keen! (We would have been out there doing it yesterday only for this feckin lockdown – which I fully agree with!)
Guiding through winter has been quiet which is pretty normal. However, my now regular client, Bill was down a few times. We had good fishing, mixing it up with sight and blind fishing on a number of lakes and working on casting. While up in Mackenzie country we had an encounter with an absolute monster. Sighted on a lake edge. I’d say 12lbs plus. I don’t think canal fish can get in to this lake, so that was a genuine monster. He was hovering with his dorsal just poking out. One good cast from Bill and the trout violently spooked, shifting a lot of water. I’m itching to get back! That was certainly a fish of a lifetime and I want to catch it.
In other news, I’ve been using my green boat a bit lately. She still has no name! I totally misjudged it as a boat. I thought it was too heavy for fishing shallows and only good for cruising with the family. To my delight, It’s great to fish from and drifts like a dream. Ideal for one but fine for two too. Wesley was out with me recently and he found it really easy and comfortable to fish from the hatch opening. It works like a lean bar whichever way we drift, so I don’t need to mount a casting deck on the bow – though I might anyway! It’s a very versatile boat. Easy to tow and launch, very economical with a 15hp 4 stroke Evinrude – clips along nicely with that, drifts well and easy to cast from with nothing for flyline to wrap around (well, almost nothing). The other big advantage is the cabin. It will keep any amount of gear dry and out of the weather and there room for me to sleep in it. I’m really looking forward to the future with this boat. Some of you may remember Daltona. She’s still in the workshop and the renovation is moving forward very slowly. I will get there!
I wrote a piece for Fulling Mill lately about my top 10 trout for the 20 – 21 season. Here is a link to it. Some great trout in there and a brief recap on each one.
If you’d like to get in touch about guided fishing this season or next please do. Strange times but it costs nothing to have a chat! Email me at ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.
Tight Lines, Ronan..
Out on my own – Waitaki.
A good July day. Landed 4 including this one on a dry – Indicator Klink from Fulling Mill. This has become my go-to dry.
Out with the family for a few hours.
Lochlan
Adaline
Lochlan after catching his first trout! In all the panic I didn’t get a pic of the fight.
He wanted to eat it!
Trout is a family favourite for dinner.
Scouting some water for some upcoming guiding. Plenty trout!
Low water but fishing well.
Out with Bill.
SLHT 6wt – Now Bills favourite rod.
Good fishing!
Flats!
When the wind got up the buggers came out!
Waitaki. They were here a week prior but they were hard to find on this day.
We worked hard in the wind and got a few.
No wind today!
We fished a few spots before finding fish.
Not many fish around but Bill landed 2 good trout.
Nice place to catch a trout..
We watched the mist slowly advance up the lake all day. Finally it got to us!
A quiet stream mouth.
Ducks!
Back on Dunstan.
Lost this one!
Saw a couple here.
Then the wind increased and fishing really amped up.
The Harfin reel well christened.
Small streamers doing well.
Heading out myself..
Pulled up the boat to walk a flat..
Lots of healthy trout about. Love that Primal too!
This was deadly fished blind under a dry.
I love boat fishing.
Won’t be breaking any speed records but the 15hp Evinrude does the job.
Pulled up to go for a walk.
This flat was too shallow.
Back in the boat and the action continued. Plenty fish for the day.
My laptop has died, this time for good I think so I’m using a 15 year old computer to put this weeks report together. Not an easy task. To say it’s slow would be an understatement! It seems to be working however so I won’t jinx it..
Last weekend I had intended to fish Saturday and Sunday on one or 2 of the Southern Lakes. Friday night was a late one so I fished the second half of Saturday on Dunstan. It was very good! There were lots of fish moving and I had a few but they are still on the thin side. I have not encountered any rainbows out there so I’m guessing they are either out deep or up the river. I tried the sinking like on it without much success.
Saturday was different! I motored across a nearby lake (not Dunstan!) to try some totally new water. I got to an area with a small river flowing in and some dead trees sticking out of the lake. The water here is cristal clear which makes the drop offs clearly evident. I started with a clear intermediate line and a woolley bugger drifting along and over the drop-off. This gave me a good start but something was telling me go deeper, so I did. Much deeper in fact. I used a Di7 line from Airflo which is bacically a 40 foot superfast sinking shooting head on intermediate running line. I fished it with my 8wt tcx. The wind was idealy light so I could cover water but still have time to let my line reach depth. usually 10-20 foot. My technique is to cast it out about 25-30m, let it sink for various amounts of time then slowly (sometimes quickly!) retrieve it back to the boat. Some people recommend a short leader with a sinking line so that the fly quickly follows the fly line at whatever depth its at. I dont agree with this. I prefer a long leader and allow the first few retrieves to get the fly to the level (depth) of the fly line. A long cast is an advantage with this method because after the fly has reached the depth of the line you should still be far enough from the boat or back to prospect a lot of water. Also plenty fish take the fly as its diving to line level. The longer you can effectively keep the fly from the fly line the less fish you will spook. Takes from depth must be experienced to be believed. They are usually certain, clean and solid. On Saturday I hooked 12 and landed 12.
This is my first NZ winter in ten years so this fishing is basically new to me. I have just realised a type of fishing that consumes my thoughts. I want to on the water and no where else but I have to work. The world is all messed up. It should be 2 days work and 5 days fishing.
Ronan..
A couple of buggers tied with some stuff Dad sent over..
Me and this big, stunning lake for the day..
This is exploration for me. I had never been here before. Time to survey the water and adopt a method..
1st fish on the second drift. Clear intermediate.
This was number 4. (another the same size escaped the camera!) After the first 3 on the intermediate I decided to change to the dDi7.
I didn’t see another sinner all day..
The takes from the depth were superp. Everything I hooked was landed.
The biggest fish of the day! Worth setting up the 10 second timer for..
The smallest fish of the day.. I dont recall ever seeing a rainbow so blue. Even more so in the water.
Absolute perfection! With winter fishing this good, Who needs summer!!??
The same fish. She ripped line off the reel!
Home time. 20 mins at 30mph and I’m back at the truck.
Today was a day I’ll never forget. Roll on next weekend!
Hey Freddie! I’m wearing the lifejacket as promised!!
Back on the trailer ready for another day.. A truck and a boat and NZ is your oyster!