Fly Fishing New Zealand

By: Alfie

Fly fishing in Singapore is rather limited, or limiting. Opportunities for river or lake fishing are virtually non existent, unless one ventures into Malaysia or another neighbouring country. I’m sure that most fly fishers that get into this sport have at one time or another dream catching a trout or salmon on a fly. So whenever my job takes me somewhere I can catch a salmonid, I make full use of the chance.

February 9th , 2007 sees me landing in Christchurch, New Zealand. It’s mid summer and it’s trout season. I’ve been to Christchurch on numerous occasions and have caught some small rainbow before but nothing big. This time I was determined to get me a decent fish! New Zealand as we all know is famous for trout – BIG TROUT. Though the trout are not always available in huge numbers in the rivers, the number of trophy fish that can be caught are. My trip would only see me get a day and a half of fishing and the weather on arrival wasn’t at all great. It was overcast with drizzle and intermittent rain. Can’t complain right?

Undeterred, I sorted out the car rental the moment I stepped into the hotel room and went out to get the car. At NZ $69 a day, it wasn’t so bad considering it was Friday and during peak season. Then, it was off to Mike’s Fishing Tackle in the city to buy my fishing license for the next two days and of course, to find out where the current hot spots were. As usual, Mike was very helpful and laid out my options for rivers that were within 2 hours drive of Christchurch. There are many streams and rivers near the city and some of course had good runs of salmon, sea run trout, browns and rainbows….. Decisions…decisions!

What flies were the fish taking? Big bushy dries or small nymphs were the order of the week. A Size 14 or 12 Humpy with a small size 16 nymph tied to the bend of the dry would pretty much would do the job. As some of the runs in the rivers are quite deep, a twin nymph rig would be required. It was a good thing I tied a couple of Bead Head Hare n Coppers plus some Pheasant Tail Nymphs the afternoon of the day of my flight.

After everything was settled, it was almost 3:30 pm and I decided to go somewhere close by to fish the rest of the afternoon. Back to the hotel to grab all the gear and off I went.

The Waimakariri River (or the Waimak as the locals call it) is just on the outskirts of Christchurch. It is a big braided river that has salmon runs at its mouth. The river itself was too big for me to fish comfortably, and it’s mostly that light blue colouration with fine silt… I’d tried to fish it once…. not for me. So I ended up in the South Branch of the Waimak. This is a tributary that looks like a spring fed river/stream, I’m not sure. It has several pools, some quite deep and it runs through mostly paddocks.

There are, however, several points of access to the river as marked out by NZ Fish and Game signs. One has to contend with curious cows that sometimes come too close for comfort.

This time I used another point of access that I had not tried before. Walking through the paddocks, I got disoriented for awhile before I eventually made it to the stream. It was choked full of weed and I was a little disappointed to say the least.

“But what the heck, having trudged all the way here, might as well give it a shot”, I consoled myself.

So I rigged up my 4 wt and a 9 ft tapered 4X leader and tied on a size 14 Bead Head Pheasant Tail Nymph (PTN) and a size 14 PTN. The wind

was blowing pretty strong in my face and the whole rig was quite a handful (Fishing for Peacocks is so much less complicating). I was getting hung up in the weeds (as you can see in the photos) on nearly every drift. Trying to get a drift in the lane between the weeds was not an easy affair. After 4 or 5 drifts, the nymphs got stuck and I lost the tippet with the two flies. ShXX! And it was starting to rain! After 45 minutes of fruitless efforts, I went back to the car and tried another spot downstream where I had some luck on a previous trip – ZERO, ZIP... NADDA!

So, Day 1 ended with me - 0, fish and all the elements – 1.

Tomorrow, well, that's another story .................