Salty Fly Fun

We have been giving the salt fly thing a bit more of a nudge recently and shot out on Tuesday to Tauranga Harbour. We met our buddy Lucas over there who has the advantage of local knowledge and first cast at first light saw him hook into a solid Kingfish on a popper fly. That one wrapped him around the marker so he proceeded to pull a little one out from the same spot.

Nice fat Kahawai, went a little way into the backing!

That was all we saw of Kingfish for the day but there were more than enough Kahawai to keep us happy, as well as discovering a few new spots for next time. The Scott Tidal and A4 rods performed admirably and the Hatch Finnatic and Lamson Speedster reels provided more than enough stopping power.

Josh with a nice little King Country Brown

The next day we changed pace entirely and returned to one of the spots we grew up fishing. Good to know that some things stay the same!

Tough Love

A few days at the start of the week saw the 2 of us heading for the hills, well the rivers between the hills anyway. Tuesday greeted us with bluebird skies and a searing hot day, although a rather tough 30 knot wind was also randomly present. The thought of this wind effing up our fishing was definitely not a good one but it did lend a hand in cooling us on the walk in. It did also load the surface of the river with some fat cicadas so we weren't complaining too much...

Once we got to the river, the wind had buggered off almost completely and the fishing was on! The river was relatively low and very clear, making it easy to spot the fish. This being said, it soon became apparent that they could spot us even easier than they usually do. A few were feeding, but nothing was going batshit crazy.

After studying them for a little bit, we decided it was larger nymphs and if at all, smaller dry flies. It proved to be somewhat accurate but we had to really work for it! If a cast was off line by even the slightest, the fish were off upstream or the browns would sulk on the bottom.

All of the fish that we saw were in really good nick and certainly weren't going hungry. The fact that they were sometimes rather shy (or probably just smarter than we gave them credit for) is probably the abundance of food in the area. Both myself and Cameron had really good fish take intense looks at several flies before deciding they were either not hungry or our flies too ugly

Although it was tough going and at times I was left wondering why I even bothered fishing, the few we managed to get made it doubly worth while. It certainly was tough love but the challenging fishing can't be matched by anything else. Back country fishing just can't be beaten! Especially with fish like these playing the game! Nothing huge from the trip, but the privilege of being out in the hills even being close to them makes the landed ones doubly special.

Typical golden Brown Trout

Typical back country Rainbow. Lots of spots and colour!

Super spotty Bow! Even has spots on its eyes!

Typical specimens of both Brown and Rainbow Trout. Both in pretty typical environments too. The Browns were generally seen on the edge of very sunny runs while the Bows were holed up under the cover of trees feeding mentally in slightly deeper but faster runs. No doubt there would have been a Big Dog Brown hiding at the base of one or two of those runs. Until next time. Then we will see!