Ronan's Report

It’s always hard to judge how much clothing to bring with you for a day on the water in NZ. The mornings can be freezing cold but the afternoons can get into the high 20’s and even more at times. I guess it’s better to have too much rather than too little. The weekend passed was truly one of extremes when it comes to weather and temperatures. We had a blizzard on Saturday after a beautiful sunny morning with blue skies, then occasional sun throughout the day between the prolonged heavy snowfalls. As Jeff and I walked down river on Saturday morning before starting fishing there were numerous stops made to take raincoats off and then to put them on again before the snow settled in for the majority of the day! Sunday started out freezing cold but warmed up to be a cracking, hot blue sky day. I brought an extra layer with me but didn’t use it. I nearly melted on the 5k walk out!

Fishing was tough all weekend. We didn’t get a heap of shots but we did have some great moments with trout unexpectedly eating our dries. I had one cruise up from about a meter down. That few seconds when a fish is rising up to take your dry removes everything else from your thoughts. It’s just you and him, you’re watching with absolute attention hoping he keeps coming and does not refuse. This one didn’t!

I also had a fish after about 50 casts and 4 fly changes. In the end he took the nymph stripped! I moved the fly by mistake in the previous cast and he chased it, so I tried it again on the next cast and it worked!

All up it was a weekend of difficult but enjoyable (as always) fishing and some extreme weather!

Thanks for the pics and the beer Jeff!

Ronan..