Ronan's Report

As fly fishermen we often refer to the fishing gods. Good luck or bad, the fishing gods are there. I think for many of us its mostly in jest but with a little belief in there too. Maybe even a lot of belief. After a great moment or a great day I frequently find myself thanking something that I can’t see, usually looking up while doing it. This – or these, are the fishing gods. There would seem to be more than one as we always refer to fishing gods, plural.

On a day with Marcus earlier in the summer the fishing gods played a major role. The plan was to go after a big trout on a river we both love. I had been having a shocking run of luck on it. Constant bad days for almost 2 seasons. Everything going wrong – perfect forecasts turned to shite, beaten to it due to a flat tire, getting jumped or just generally not getting it right. For years previous to to that run of bad luck I couldn’t put a foot wrong. The fishing gods nearly always seemed to be on my side. I had a feeling that they were about to side with me (and Marcus) again.

We set off in the morning with a great forecast. Quietly confident that we’d get it right. We gave ourselves 2 days to do it so it was a big advantage to know that if things went wrong we had another chance the next day. It all started when I got overtaken by a guide (we’ll call him Jim) on approach to the dirt track. He accelerated ahead as I got stuck behind a farm truck. I wasn’t happy about this. The farm truck stayed on the main road as I peeled off onto the dirt track and put the boot down. I realised to my delight that my opponent didn’t take the shortcut – so I did. I cut him off at the top and took my rightful place in front. I knew I’d see him at the first gate anyway. When we got to the gate Marcus hopped out to open it. I drove through as did the other guide. Then the fecker tried to sneak around me! I was out of the vehicle at this stage to have a chat. When he saw me he stopped. “Ronan, I didn’t know you in your new truck” he said! We had a good laugh and then chatted about how we’d share the river. We both wanted the first beat. I was just about to let him take his first choice (since we had 2 days) but he got in before I could speak to offer a coin toss. Why not I thought. He won the toss so got his first choice. I actually prefer the other beat anyway but logistically it made a little more sense to do the lower beat first but it really didn’t matter. So meeting Jim changed the order of our days to the 2nd beat on day 1 and the 1st beat on day 2 as opposed to the other way around.

We got to the second beat and tackled up. Everything felt good. It was peaceful with nobody else around and warming up nicely. There was no rush getting started. The sun is very important for spotting and it encourages the cicadas out of the ground so we let it rise a bit before starting. Not too far up there was a very good pool which I know well. We took our time on it fishing both banks and picked up a few blind fishing. Two 3lbers and an incredibly fat 6, all on my green cicada. A really great start. As the day progressed the cicadas started to get on the water. Nothing major, just little flurries of them now and again. Marcus had a couple of opportunities both resulting in an eat but no connection. Then, in a pool I don’t generally see a fish in, we spotted a brute. Marcus got into position. I knew it was a very big fish. I could see the depth, width and length clearly in the water. There was a flurry of cicadas coming down at that time and the trout was making the most of it. Trout often cruise the pools looking for cicadas making them a little harder to intercept. This fish was on station only moving forwards and backwards a little while swinging left and right to slurp down cicadas. This gave us a great chance. A dream shot at a really big fish. First cast was dead right. Fish came over and a refused. Second cast on target – another refusal. I quickly took off the green cicada and put on a smaller tussock cicada. Cast 3 was on target and the brute lunged over to eat it just like a natural. The strike was good and fish was on. I was confident from the first sight that he was a double. During the fight I remained confident. The moment he went in the net I called it. “10 maybe 10 and a half” I said. I lifted the scale and he went straight to 10 and a bit pounds. Just over the increment. 10 is the magic number for trout fishermen and Marcus now has a magnificent double to talk about. He’s been close many times and this was something he really wanted and worked hard for so it couldn’t be more deserved. Come what may for the rest of the day or the next day, we’d achieved what we came here to do.

On day 2 we fished the first beat. We saw very few and never had a decent shot all day. We met some Fish & Game officers up there who told us they’d just spoken with a couple of anglers who were dropped off somewhere on the 2nd beat in the morning. It’s a good thing our order of beats changed or those fellas would have been in front of us and we’d never have known without a vehicle to mark their presence. Fishing behind someone on this river would be a waste of time. So this is where the fishing gods came in. Jim overtaking us in the morning lead to us getting the order of our two days just right. It simply had to be in the order we had it in, and that order was down to luck – or fishing gods! Jim told me afterwards that he had no joy on the first beat either so it really was vital to fish the second beat on day 1. So, a big thank you to the fishing gods! Whether you believe in them or not..

This brings me to March so I’ll get onto that as soon as I have a chance. If you’d like to see the flies I use on a daily basis, including everything from this report please click this link. They’re all available from Patagonia Queenstown too. Right now for the April hatches my Kiwi Dun 14 with a 16 claret nymph trailer is deadly. Best fished on 5x tippet. I’ve been getting some good reports about my streamers doing the business on Lough Mask in Ireland and my hotspot and claret nymphs are working well for stalking trout in the UK. Great to hear the positive feedback. Next season is about half full so please get in quick if you’d like to book. Visit my website or email me ronan@sexyloops.com

Tight Lines.. Ronan..

December and into January… December is a great month to fish. Trout start looking up and responding well to terrestrials. Everyone seems to love dry fly action! There were some nice mayfly hatches too. Usually short and fickle but we made the best of it when it happened. As January arrived many of my local fisheries got too warm for good (or ethical) fishing. With this I venture away to find cooler water. I like to mix it up anyway.

One day I went to a high country river in the hope of some cicada action. We got to the river at 9am and got the piece of water I hoped for. At 11am, perched high on a rock I could see a vehicle (large black ute) pull up 1 kilometre above us. They could see us I’m sure and I’m pretty sure they saw my vehicle earlier too. It’s totally unethical to do this. It takes quite a brass neck to arrive there so late and then just cut someone off. They were just too far up for me to go marching up there for an argument so we pulled out and went downstream only to get jumped again by another clown fishing downstream from an upstream access point. A really infuriating day. We should all treat other anglers as we’d like to be treated. To cut someone off so blatantly is basically stealing someones experience. I’m pretty sure I know who was in the black ute and they should know better. Sadly, I heard that they make a habit of this. Against the odds we managed a couple of good trout! One on my cicada and the other on my unweighted nymph.

All my flies are working well on their relative days. They’re available from Fulling Mill or in-store at Patagonia Queenstown.

More about January in my next blog! Its been a challenging but great month. A few days off now before KC and Mark arrive.. I’m looking forward to seeing these 2 again!

Tight lines.. Ronan..

After a hot and dry summer I was very happy to feel the weather cooling down. Autumn is a lovely time of year to fish as the leaves change colour. Trout also change colour as they darken up before spawning. Their colours can be quite spectacular. We generally get regular hatches on the rivers in April brought on by the cooler temperatures. These can produce some great sport. This year the hatches have been fickle so far, likely due to too much water in the rivers. Fish start to move up rivers and congregate at river mouths in preparation for spawning. This can also lead to great fishing opportunities. I have only a few more bookings for the season so it looks like I’ll have some time to indulge myself! I’m looking forward to that. Locally the rivers are in flood right now and they’re very slow to drop because the land is so saturated. One extreme to the other. It’s no surprise as this season of extremes continues. There’s always somewhere to fish though so I’m not too worried!

It was great to take Bernt Johansson fishing in February! We Have a few mutual friends – Paul and Stefan to name a couple. Bernt is a very successful distance casting competitor and has been part of the sexyloops brotherhood for years. Hopefully we’ll meet again.

Much and February and March are covered in the photos below. It wasn’t always easy but the results were mostly very good. I might actually get up to date with my photos when I next write a blog! This year I’ve always been at least a month behind. Enjoy the pics anyway! They tell the story..

You can check out my flies here. If you’d like to get in touch about guided fly fishing over the remainder of this season, over winter or next season you can contact me ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Tight lines! Ronan..

In 8 years guiding I never had a flat tire. Then I got a good one! The tire disintegrated beyond repair. No big deal, just put on the spare. Luckily I had a second spare but it wasn’t on a rim. The problem was getting it onto the spare rim so that I could continue working as normal. I didn’t want to chance going off the grid without a spare tire. The next day was Sunday so we changed the plan and fished locally with the intention of getting my other spare tire put on the rim the following morning once the mechanics opened. 8am on Monday we arrived at the mechanic to have the job done so that we could head into the backcountry. Turned out it was a feckin’ public holiday so we had to spend another day without going too far from home just in case we got another flat! Thankfully, the fishing was good!! 8am on Tuesday we arrived at the mechanic for the second time. Steve had the spare on the rim in jig time and were on the way after 10 minutes. Of course, normally I’d have been on the road an hour earlier. We got to the river to find the first beat occupied. No problem I thought, I wanted the 2nd beat anyway.. We got there to find we had just been beaten to that one too! Plan C was decent but we had a big fish in mind and it didn’t really cut the mustard. We waited 4 hours and then fished behind the anglers on our favoured beat. We found 2 fish, both of whom almost took the fly… but didn’t. That feckin’ flat tire really changed how our fishing unfolded. Such is life. I got a full new set since!

You can check out many of my flies over on the Fulling Mill website. I have 14 patterns available, all tried and trusted for NZ and they’ve been pretty successful around the world too.

Plenty spots available for next season and bookings are coming in regularly. Feel free to get in touch. You can contact me on ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Tight lines – Ronan..

The season is hurtling along! Here we are in January already. This can certainly be the hardest month of the regular trout season. Rivers get low and warm. Trout can get extra spooky and sometimes stop feeding in the afternoons. It’s very important to know which rivers to avoid so as to prevent undue stress on trout. Catching a trout in a warm river can easily kill it. With the farmers draining all but the last drop out of the local river it’s basically unfishable due to warming. It’s likely to stay that way for at least a few more weeks, maybe months. I have to turn my attention to cooler rivers and lakes. We need rain to top up and cool down the rivers but there’s none in the forecast. I have a very busy time coming up with some regular clients and I have formulated a good plan – I hope!

On a positive note, the fishing has been very good so far this season. Happy clients and I’ve managed to get out myself a few times. I had a day out on a dam recently with a morning of fishing to rival just about any dry fly fishing I’ve had. Green beetles on the water and trout feeding on them. Not sight fishing, fishing to rises – even better! Spending so much time guiding on the rivers has made me love the lakes even more. That’s what I want on my days off right now and this day really delivered. Engrossing fishing – moving quickly to intercept fish with fast, accurate casts. At least, that was the objective! Putting a fly in front of a tracking trout is so exhilarating – will he take it?? These’s nothing else going through my mind as that fish is hopefully continuing to track towards my fly. I can’t see him. The cast is based on where he’s most likely to be heading based on the previous rise or rises. To see that head come out of the dark water and confidently take my dry… just magic. 5 out of 6 fish that morning took me well into my backing. I play fish hard and I generally only see my backing once or maybe twice a season so this was just unreal. A breeze got up in the afternoon and the rises almost stopped. I wanted to go and check out a bay I like in the wind. I tried to drive there but ended up getting bogged. It was quite an ordeal to get it unstuck but thanks to Don from Wanaka we got it out. Probably took 5 hours all up! Still a great day. I went back for a day since and parts of the lake were very warm. Guy and I found decent fishing in cooler bays but the number of rising trout compared to the number of flies on the surface told me that most fish were already retreating to the deep. It’s too dam hot!

I’ve got another 7 patterns available with Fulling Mill. This makes the range of flies a pretty comprehensive one for NZ. They’ll cover you for just about anything you’re likely to encounter. With willow grubs in full swing on southern rivers and cicadas winding up, there’s a couple of reasons to check out the new patterns. You can see them all here.

The photos below are from December so I’ll have to get another blog out soon to catch up on the more recent stuff. I’m trying not to overload my blog with pictures!!

Still some gaps in April and plenty next season. You can contact me ronan@exyloops.com or visit my website.

Tight lines.. Ronan..

Just a quick blog today to clear the decks. I had a busy and successful season finale with some superb trout for clients. One very big fish to report on too. Before I get to that I’d like to share the rest of the seasons highlights. It’s a while since I put up a blog so some of these photos go right back to summer! I’ll also be changing back to the previous blog format after this one. Paul and I made this change back to the old format because it seemed like a good Idea, but the one I’ve been using for the last few years is much better for images. I put a slideshow at the bottom or you can click on the thumbnail images, but you have to go back to click the next one. WordPress can be very user unfriendly at times!!

Some exciting stuff coming up – Jeff and I will be doing another episode of Pure Fly NZ with Nick Reygaert. We have some ideas but nothing is set in stone as yet. Also the Piscatorial pot! I probably wont run it this month but I hope to run it in June. We’ll certainly need a good stock of wood for the brazier – which wont be a problem! Also a potential visit to the coast on the cards..

If you’d like to get in touch about guided fly fishing next season please get in touch. The season is already quite full but still some decent gaps for multi-day trips. ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Enjoy the pics below and I’ll be back soon with something more!

   Tight Lines, Ronan..

ps, Here is a link to my flies available from Fulling Mill. 

 

It’s been a very full on start to the year. Some guiding which has been great but more importantly I’ve had a lot of time to fish myself – I’m not quite sure how that happened but I’m not complaining! There’s been lots of highlights. One of them, the biggest highlight for sure was a trip to Fjordland with Nick Reygaert. The trouble is, too much other stuff has happened since to do that trip justice in a shared blog. It deserves it’s own report and it will come!! I’m just not sure when yet.

Another highlight I’d like to mention was on a day I went in search of a big fish or 2 on a solo mission. It was a day when I needed to walk a lot of river to find fish. Over the day I walked about 12 kilometres of river and only saw only 5 fish. 3 of those I landed. Number one and two took my Kiwi Dun without much difficulty but the 3rd was a different story. This turned into an hour long cat and mouse tactical battle on the last pool of the day. It started as I approached a long, slow pool and saw some nervous water half way up. Then a rise in the same area. “Brilliant” I thought, “theres a fish in the pool”. I advanced carefully up the pool looking as intently as possible – then I spooked a small fish of about 3lbs. That was not what I was expecting. Surely that was not the fish I saw first? I didn’t think it was a small fish. On the reasonable chance there’s still a big fish cruising the pool, I’ll continue to proceed with caution – that was my thinking. Sure enough, I saw another rise and it looked big. “Game on” I thought. I moved slowly to intercept the rise but could not see the fish. Then he rose under the cut bank at my feet. Knee length grass obscured me from the fishes vision and I could just make out his tail as it pushed him gently upstream and out of sight. The light was not great. This was the point when I decided to take a more careful approach than I might usually take. I decided not to persue the fish by way of following him up the pool because I thought I could easily spook him. Instead I decided to reset altogether. I went right back to the start of the pool and started my approach again. I ended up doing this numerous times. Somtimes I got a half chance, sometimes a brief visual, sometimes nothing. On one occasion I got a great visual and enough time to make a cast. 3 actually. I covered him each time with the dun and he totally ignored it each time. The fish was cruising like a trout looking for a cicadas but there were none on the water – at least none that I could see. I put one on anyway and once again reset. Back to the start. Another careful, slow and stealthy approach. Then, right up at the head of the pool I saw him rise. “Now” I thought.. I ran lightfooted half way to the rise then slowed right down. My thinking was that if he was cruising towards me after that rise he should be close now. From a crouched position I was scoping all round, now staying still. Then I saw him – cruising at 45 degrees away from my bank but in my general direction. I laid out my cast and dropped the cicada about 2 metres in front of him with an intentional plop. He immediatly set his course for it and cruised confidently all the way to it and….. chomp. The lift into such big weight is like a drug and I’m certainly addicted. What a high.

I thought he would make the magic 10lbs. He looked it during the fight but my weigh net said 9.5lbs. Of course it doesn’t matter but there is a certain fixation people have (me included!) about those ellusive double figure fish which is why I like to say the weight. That was the end of a really amazing day in the backcountry. I had the whole upper river to myself and I walked pretty much all of it.

In other news, I’m delighted to have another 4 fly patterns in the 2022 Fulling Mill catalog. I could not be happier with how well the team at Fulling Mill replicated these flies. 3 of them are streamers and one is a dry. One of the streamers is the tried and trusted Bruiser. Immortalised in the Lake Pukaki episode of Pure Fly NZ. This fly caught all the fish for both Jeff and myself on day 2 – before it had a name! The 2nd one is the Killer Smelt. A newer pattern designed to immitate cockabullies and smelt. I’ve had great success on this fly. It works well in clear water when darker streamers will get follows but not takes. This is also great in the salt. And last but not least is the Green Machine. Lighter in colour than the Bruiser and darker than the smelt, this fly completes the little family of streamers. In my humble opinion, what sets these flies apart is their simplicity. Just 2 main componants of possum and marabou which seemlessly gel together in the water. Their profile is very lifelike with natural, fluid movement. Another advantage of these flies is that they don’t wrap around. They’re tied on the Fulling Mill Competition Heavyweight hook which is incredibly strong. Just as good as the Kamasan B175 which I always used in the past, now I just use the FM version. The dry fly is actually one of my fathers creations which he’d been tying for NZ for about 10 years, so it’s very much tried and trusted. It’s a favourite of many of my clients as well as one of my own. The only thing I added to this fly was the sighter post to make it more visable. In a 14 its a great mayfly immitation and the 12 is superb for larger mayflies or as a general dry. I’m excited to see how these flies do around the world! I know dad has had a lot of success on his dry on Lough Corrib in the West of Ireland during olive and sedge hatches. A good friend is using them in Tasmania right now. There’s a batch of 60 streamers headed to Malaysia to help Paul fill up 6 boxes of flies for the guides involved in the Sungai Tiang project. I’m really looking forward to seeing them in action over there! I know my good friend John O Malley is going to give them a swim on Corrib for early season brownies. I’m confident they’ll work well. All my Fulling Mill patterns are available here.

Feel free to get in touch about guided fly fishing on the lower South Island for the remainder of the season if you’re within NZ. For those of you abroad, it looks like visitors will be allowed in this October – although a dates has not yet been set. Feel free to get in touch to arrange a booking starting in November to be on the safe side. ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website

Tight lines! Ronan..

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It feels like the season has only started and it’s January already. This is why I try to get the most out of winter fishing – once the regular season opens, it’s over in no time, it accelerates. I guess thats why we have to make the best of everything. Life is short and we don’t know whats coming. On that note, I’m certainly trying to make the best of these challenging times. Yes, my business is in ruins and I worry about and miss my family in Ireland but all other aspects of life are better. Family time, my own fishing time, time in the workshop and restoring our old house and garden. In a normal guiding season I don’t see the inside of my workshop and maintaining the house is limited to mowing the lawns now and again. I know I’ll miss this when things go back to normal. In fact, it’s made me rethink what’s actually important so much so that I’m considering reducing my number of guide days per year to keep more of this work / life balance that I’m enjoying so much. I think when all this is over many people will realise the good points of this strange time – and there are many, at least there are here in NZ. I want to enjoy the good bits right now and forget about the negative as much as I can. I’m not going to look back and think I missed out or could have done things differently. I’m thankful to be in NZ where our freedom has not been affected like peoples in other parts of the world.

I’ve been on the water 3 out of the first 4 days of this year. Good results from various conditions. I have a very exciting exploratory backcountry mission coming up so this year is kicking off in style. More on all that in my next blog.

I’m attempting to improve my photography a little. David Lambroughton has been giving me a few valuable pointers. I’ve taken my wifes 10 year old Lumix GF2 out of the closet and got a polarising filter for it. I love the results. Polarising was always something I wanted from my picture taking but waterproof cameras are limited in this regard. Putting my sunnies in front of the lens wears thin! Don’t worry, you wont see “Photography” after my name or watermarks on any images! The photo’s below tell the story of a great finale to 2021.

I have 4 new patterns coming out this year with Fulling Mill. 3 streamers and a dry. I’m excited about that. More on those soon. My nymphs are currently available here.

Feel free to get in touch about guided fly fishing whether your in NZ or abroad. ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Tight lines and I sincerely wish you all a great 2022. Ronan..

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As soon as the trans-Tasman travel restrictions were lifted I had some of my regulars booking trips. I didn’t think it was going to happen but finally, it did. It felt great to be busy again and things are looking good for May too. I had 8 consecutive guide days to finish off the regular season and managed a day myself on the 30th to polish it off. It wasn’t always easy and hatches were average to poor apart from one day where it really fired. Generally, April is the best month for mayfly hatches down here, so when it doesn’t happen it’s a little disappointing. Some days when the hatch was happening, we were almost running up river to find rising trout before it switched off again. Because it can switch off so suddenly! On one of the days, fly was pouring off for a while in the late afternoon. We got a couple during the hatch, then it stopped. Then 30 minutes later fly was pouring off again but the fish didn’t respond. 2 variables, fish and fly – and they both need to be “on” for it to work! All up, the guiding days went very well. I really enjoyed the time with my regular clients who are also friends at this stage and great to meet Vipin and Dave for the first time. About that day, Vipin was having a run of bad luck. Hooking fish but loosing them, getting the eat but not the hook-up and loosing a very big fish at the net. He landed a small one just big enough to count. At the end of the day I decided to look in one more pool to see if he could have another chance at a decent fish. There he was – under a tree. Vipin is a novice caster and this was a very tough shot for any angler. I coached and encouraged him and tried not to get frustrated. Then he made the side-cast land close to the target, the fish turned and swam downstream to see what made the disturbance and ate the fly. We got the fish and that absolutely made the day.

One thing I started looking at recently is the step counter on my phone. According to it, I walked 103kms in 8 guide days. The biggest day was nearly 19kms and the smallest was over 8. An average of 13kms per day. That all sounds about right to me. Walking is an integral part of fishing in NZ. Its not all on the river of course. Many of the 103 kilometres were walking to a river or river beat where vehicle access is not permitted, or climbing in and out of gorges. Ultimately, the harder you can go the more fish you’ll catch – or, at the very least you’ll see some great country!

The story of the 8 guide days is told in the photos below. I included the fish count so you can get a clear picture of just how varied that can be. Out of the 8 days, 2 were very hard where we could easily have blanked but managed 1 and 3 respectively. All the other days were good to very good. It goes without saying that angler ability has a huge role to play. The great thing about taking Marcus out, for example, is that I don’t have to plan much around wind because he can cast into it with relative ease. So where am I going with this? I’m not sure really, but casting skill and fitness are clearly of key importance to a successful trip here. One thing I think I need to advise my clients on at the time of booking is to get out and practice casting as much as possible. Also to get out walking a bit just to raise the fitness a little if needs be. It needs to be said though, you don’t need to be a marathon runner to have a great time fishing in NZ. There are plenty great options to suit anglers not keen on, or not able for big walks.

Still spaces available in May and it can be a super month! Feel free to get in touch. ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Tight lines, Ronan..

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The more I fish the high-country dams the more I love them. Like any good fishery they’re not easy. They can be incredibly dour in fact. Many anglers only go up there during high summer in the hope of being there when the cicadas emerge and get blown onto the water. In my experience this rarely actually happens.

When Dad and I used to travel around the South Island every year or so, we would always include the dams. Dad was always over for the month of November. We never had any dry fly action over that time, but it can happen. I was happy walking shoreline stripping buggers and dad liked moving more slowly fishing two of his PT nymphs or buzzers with the figure of 8 retrieve. Both methods worked. For me these dams are blind fisheries. Only during perfect sighting conditions might you sight a fish. Fishing to rising trout is always on the cards with a plethora of terrestrial insects included in the trouts diet, caddis and chironomid too. Whatever is happening, be prepared to blind fish. I think this is why dad and I both love it. Coming from a lakes background in Ireland we had to blind fish – that’s all we did. But as I’ve said many times blind fishing is not chuck and chance. Every cast is considered, we look for something fishy; weeds, structure, drop-offs, points, bays, rocks, shallows etc.

Once you get into the groove of your chosen method you just have to have faith and persist until something tells you otherwise. The reasons I still use my possum / marabou bugger as my go-to blind fishing method is: 1, The trout feed a lot on fry. 2 They feed on Koura and a bugger is a good representation of this too. 3, I can cover a lot of water quickly. 4, The trout are very opportunist. I occasionally take a fish for the table. When checking the stomach contents there are usually multiple different food items in there. Commonly, for example, loads of caddis with one fry or loads of corixa with one koura. This tells me that they won’t pass up a bugger! These dams offer trout the largest range of food of any fishery I know. Because of this, my guess is that when the dams appear to be dead, they’re not! The fish just out of our reach for whether it be physical or otherwise.

I fish my bugger on a floating line with a long leader so that I can count it down if I need to. Also, so that if fish start taking dries I can quickly change over. Sometimes in shallow bays I’ll blind fish nymphs instead of a bugger or if its calm I’ll sometimes do the same. If you are lucky enough to be there when the trout are looking up then its simply magic. I’ve only really experienced it once. I was with Justin and Dan from Big Sky Anglers in Montana. Day 7 of 7 – the dream finale!

On a personal level, fishing these dams are very similar to fishing Corrib or Mask back home. The dark water, the wind, the rocks, the drift if I’m in a boat, the sounds and smells, the blind fishing aspect, the memories. Without doubt this is a huge part of the reason I love fishing them. The common methods are very similar indeed – nymphing (PTs, caddis or buzzers), dries (sometimes 2 or even 3 dries), Wets – I strip buggers instead of wets but these are fisheries where lough style can and does work. Another thing I love on some of the dams is the quality of the browns. They can be some of the most beautiful on the planet. Every time I hook one I get excited to see what he / she looks like. I guess finally, they’re all just stunning places to spend a day. They’re all quite similar but with their own characteristics. I never go up there expecting to catch lots, they can always kick my arse. I’m happy if I get a fish or 2 and I’ll work hard to get them.

BOB’S BIRTHDAY

Bob has been on here many times over the years, so if you’re a regular reader you’ll know he’s my oldest friend in NZ, not because of his age, he’s the person I’ve known here right from the start. We try to catch up for a fish a few times a season and for the past 4 years we always fish for his birthday. He jokes that he must catch a fish to make it to his next birthday. We got the Birthday fish on day one at the very end of the day. It was tough – fish just not responding but we did it in the end with a lovely 5lb brown. Day 2 we went to the dams. I did well with my P/M bugger. Bob stuck with his dries hoping for that magic take which never came. Guy was with us too. My second oldest friend in NZ. Bob introduced me to Guy, so I love it when the 3 of us catch up. It’s becoming tradition now that Guy joins us for day 2 of Bob’s birthday fishing expedition. Happy Birthday, Bob! Looking forward to the next one.

I’ve been reasonably busy at times with guiding thank feck. Happy clients, plenty trout. There’s a few bookings coming in but please do get in touch if you’d like to set up a trip or if you have any questions. ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Here is a link to my nymph patterns available at Fulling Mill. They’ve been doing great this season! Also getting some great feedback which is always nice to hear. I have one box of my own patterns from Fulling Mill, and they cover me for pretty much all my river nymphing needs.

Tight lines, Ronan..

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