Southland January

[mazman]

well I've just got back from nz and what a trip it was. over the course of the trip we got to go fishing at a few spots along the way and we managed to get at least one trout from each destination :toothy9:
to begin with we went to gunns camp on the hollyford river, now this river is apparently one of the hardest to fish in nz because of the large current but even so i managed to get one to rise to my fly here, unfortunately it didn't take long for it to head downstream and break me off :doh1: that was it for the hollyford but i had hooked my first nz brown and i loved every moment of it.
the next place we stayed at was manapouri this turned out to be very successful first morning we did't manage to tempt one on fly but i did get a little rainbow on lure which took a while to de-hook as it was pinned with all three points so it was promptly returned without a photo. that was it for the morning and after that it was a day trip to mavora lakes (pictured below) where we encountered some very wary trout after a lot of trial and error (mainly error) we managed to fool a tiny rainbow before we had to leave. and it was back to manapouri for, hopefully, a good evening rise. dad got a brown on lure before the rise and i managed my first rainbow on fly, i know its not huge but it was my first so i was absolutely stoked.

next we headed to queenstown where we fished the mataura and lake wakatipu. only session on the lake was cut short but dad managed to get a skinny brown on his third cast weighed around 2lb but was long enough for 3 which was a shame to see. the first session on the mataura resulted in three hookups and three lost fish :shocker: all on fly. this quickly led to the purchase of a new net a first for me and i was hoping it would pay off. the next visit to the mataura started slowly and we were starting to think having the net meant no fish. but after dark I managed a nice brown and ten minutes later mum had one from the same pool :a_goodjob: I finally had my first nz brown to the bank and mum caught her first trout too. the net had paid off as both these fish wouldn't have been brought in without one due to the nature of the pool.

pics will be posted in the replies.
cheers, Alex

[mazman]

the promised pics...

[biggar]

Awesome mate!

[Snapper Snatcher]

Always wanted to get over there, nice fish.

[mazman]

thanks guys, only just got back and already want to go again :icon_lolz: would definitely recomend to anyone wanting to just make sure you practice your casting prior and bring a net it will help you heaps.

for some reason this one didn't attach.

[Boonanza]

Excellent report & pics mazman :thumbsup: Some lovely fish mate :good:



Cheers Steve

[barra mick]

that's was a awesome read and pics!!

cheers bm

[Fishn104]

Cracking pics there and great read! Thanks for sharing...