My Best Day of Fishing, Ever

My best day of fishing, ever, took place in NZ a few years ago on the Mataura. It is an unusual fishery for NZ, in that it holds a lot of fish (all Browns)... Where we were fishing, a "small" fish would be about 2 lbs (a big, chunky 19 incher), and a big fish would be 5 lbs (chunky 22-23 inches)...most were 3-4 lbs.

It's a bouldery, freestone stream with fabulous structure...lots of deep runs...alternating riffles and bend pools...willows along the banks...and large flats. By NZ standards it's only a medium size stream, and lots of fun to fish.

I was out with a guide on a nice stretch, which we'd had all to ourselves all morning, mostly nymphing the riffles and drop offs...and had picked up 4 or 5 smallish fish (i.e. 3 lbs). We stopped for lunch.

When we came back...the fish had moved out of the runs into the flats. These were bouldery, quiet areas along one bank opposite the main current flows. Some flats were quite large...say 100+ feet long, and 10-40 feet wide. Water depth was perhaps 18". And there were many of such flats along the stretch of river where we were fishing.

Imagine, if you will, that along these flats there is a 3-5 lbs brown trout holding in every square yard of space....dozens and dozens in each flat, which you can just distinguish by their shadows on top of the boulders.

And willing to take a dry fly - a big bushy royal wulff, size 10. But there's a catch (there always is in NZ, which is what makes it a fun place).

First, you have to fish an 18 foot leader...NZ fish are VERY line shy.

Second, you have to cast the fly about 35 feet upstream, about 10 feet in front of the fish, and directly in his feeding lane. Less than 10 feet he'll ignore the fly. More, and he'll see your line and spook.

As I said, it has to be directly in his feeding lane. Not that he won't chase your fly if it's off center, he will. But when he turns on the fly, he'll see you standing 25 feet behind him and take off. Also, you get basically one shot per fish. It's almost impossible to catch a fish if you don't put it on him with the first cast.

Oh, one more thing. There's a head wind. You have to straighten out your 18 foot leader directly into the wind. It gusts up to about 30 miles an hour...but dies down to almost nothing from time to time. However, if you cast when the wind is too slow, the fish will see your fly land, and take off. So you have to wait for the wind to come up a bit to riffle the water...at least 10 mph, and hope to get your cast off before it's blown back into your face.

What made it so rewarding was that it was entirely within your control. Get off a good cast into the wind, and you had a 90% chance that the fish will take, and a very good chance of landing him (the brownies would dive into a deep run...but there were few places you could really lose them if you knew what you were doing).

Screw up the cast, and you'd lose him.

This situation lasted about 2 hours. During that period, I cast to perhaps 40 fish and landed a little less than half. It was magical, made all the more rewarding because a) it was challenging fishing and b) after 10 days of fishing every day in NZ, my skills had gotten to the point where I could more or less pull it off. __________________