Sunday cold and wet

Well, today was an exact repeat of yesterday weather wise, with one exception...it actually rained a bit on us. Once again visibility was horrible trying to spot fish. You simply must have sun to have much of a chance at spotting fish in these streams. When dealing with faster moving water and riffles, where the fish often are, without sun you can’t detect a shadow and often all you can see is a dark spot. You can stare at it until you get a headache trying to determine if this dark spot has a tail and moves!!!

So, I went out with a different guide today and we stayed close to home, which also meant lots of people to contend with. Being a Sunday, we ran into people everywhere we went in the holes we wanted to fish. If not other fishermen, then it was kids and dogs playing in water, or 4 wheeling in cars and ATV’s so it was kind of hopeless. We fished blind which I hate doing and I only picked up a few very small fish on dry flies.

It was another day of tons of walking and unproductive fishing. I finally called it a day around 3:30 or so having had enough of blind fishing which is not what people come to New Zealand to do, and no fish. If we’d gone to the high country, the weather would have been sunny and clear and it would have made for a nicer day. Probably would have had fewer people messing with the water too. Well that’s it for fishing for this trip. I’d have to give the North Island the gold star for fishing on this trip. It was far superior to the South Island this go round. I think the South Island streams are getting way more pressure and there don’t seem to be as many fish as there used to be either.

Well, only one more sleep in New Zealand and then it’s homeward bound.