Wild Trout With Morel Sauce

Last weekend I went up into the foothills of the Tobacco Root Mountains to a cool little beaver pond that holds tons of nice little pan size trout.


I affectionately refer to this as the "dinner pool" for when I have out of town guests who always seem to ask if we can go catch some trout for dinner. So, I reserve this special spot for just that. So Maggie, the wonder dog and I went up the hill so to speak and caught some nice trout for din din. The flies and ants were driving me nuts so I didn't stay too long, but the fishing, as always was superb. I was armed with my 2 weight fly rod and a box of elk hair caddis which I know they can't resist. There are a lot of little tiny dinkers in these ponds but there are some decent ones too. By decent I mean 10-12" which in my opinion is the perfect size for the pan.



I decided to do the fish in a flour and cornmeal dredge and pan fry them in butter and grapeseed oil. Then I made a creamed morel sauce with madeira and cream to pour over the fish. As a side as if we needed any more fat in our diet, I did a batch of fried morels in a flour and egg dredge and finished off in ...... yes, you guessed it, more butter!




Man, that was good.... now when are those boletes going to start to pop? I'm waiting....... Bon Appetit!

Saturday Dec. 1st Fishing with Kevin

Today I met up with one of my South Island guides and went out for a short day of fishing. Being a Saturday and his only day off after many days working, we left later than normal and also I was spending the majority of the morning dealing with problems at home with frozen pipes back in Montana, according to my friend, house and pet sitter. So I dealt with how she should handle frozen pipes and also a last minute New Zealand booking for a client who was actually on his way to the airport as we spoke this morning! So off to a late start, but it was still a good productive day albeit a rather chilly one. We were freezing!!! Kevin and I decided to wade wet since the sun was out and it looked like a nice day...BUT as the day progressed, the weather “turned to custard” as they say down here and it got cold and cloudy and a little windy. Just enough to feel chilled to the bone, wearing shorts and wet wading. Brrr.... not a good idea today. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be the same as today’s weather. It’s not supposed to be, but this area is much like Montana in that the weather can change at the drop of a dime.

Nonetheless, we still had a good day of fishing and I caught some nice fat brown trout.




No matter where you are in New Zealand, you are never more than 60 miles from the coast, so weather can change quite rapidly which is what happened today. This was not in the forecast so we’ll see how they do tomorrow. I go out with a different guide tomorrow to a different river.

After such warm weather this entire trip, and beautiful sunny days, today was actually the first day I felt cold and not just cold but chilled to the bone. I haven’t been able to get warm all day so I came home and jumped in the shower and stood under the hot water for ages until I thawed. I don’t think it was actually that cold, but the relative humidity was high so it felt really cold. Coming from such a dry climate, it felt colder to me than if I was home in 20 degrees F.

So, a new report once I see how things go tomorrow. Unfortunately, I’m once again in an area with no internet connection and I’m not set up this trip to do dial up on my laptop so I’m at the mercy of other people’s computers to go online to do anything, This post may have to wait a few days to go up but at least I’m writing it now while it’s fresh in my mind.

OK...off to bed now. It’s 2:21AM in Montana now and I only have two more days to go so I should try to start getting closer to my old time clock as it will make for an easier adjustment when I go back home.

Ciao for now.

Riverview Lodge Hanmer Springs

Wow, what a view from this place! The Southern Alps in the background and all the colors of spring...pretty magnificent. Too bad the fishing couldn't have been as good. I guess we're not in Motu anymore, Toto!!!

Today John and I walked what seemed like an eternity over river rocks and didn't see a whole lot of fish. On top of that, the weather has changed a bit here heading into the mountains and the wind blew all day from the minute I got up this morning until now and I believe it's still howling out there. Ever try casting a flyrod directly into gale force winds? it's not pretty, let me tell you. At times my cast came back right at me and tried to wack me in the face. This is not my idea of fun and it's not at all like Motu where there are fish everywhere and you can SEE THEM!!!!! OK...enough whining. We only saw three fish and I hooked two of them and landed one...albeit a rather smallish one, but it was a sea run brown so it was feisty and different to look at. Better than nothing I reckon...although the pesky sand flies are not much fun to deal with...that's a fact of life on the west coast of the South Island though and you just have to be prepared with bug stuff which we were.



When we returned to the lodge, Robin had a pleasant surprise in store for me. We took a run into Hanmer Springs and she had a pass for us each to take a soak in the hot pools and have a Swedish Massage, which was absolutely delightful. It saved the day as far as I was concerned.... that was a very nice surprise and then we came home to the most elegant and gourmet dinner. They have hired a chef from Germany for the season as well as another person from Switzerland to serve and help out. They did a great job and the chef is quite talented.


Tomorrow I have all day to drive all of two hours so I can take my time and maybe go back into Hanmer Springs and look around in the shops. Not much was open today as it is Sunday,

Ciao for now...I'm heading for bed.

Wednesday Motu

Tomorrow we are off to the Ruakitori River for the largest rainbows to be had in all of New Zealand. It’s also the eastern most rainbow trout fishery in the country. Frank owns a cabin on the Ruakitori, knicknamed the Ruakitori Hilton. I have high hopes for a big rainbow tomorrow. We’ll spend the night in Gisborne tomorrow night and then I’ll have a town day on Friday while I’m waiting to fly down to Christchurch on the South Island Friday afternoon. It will be Thanksgiving Day in the US. If I don’t get my next blog written in time, Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Ciao for now.....

Ruakituri Hilton and the Rainbows

Today we drove up to the Ruakituri River where Frank has his batch (cabin). The Ruakituri is well known for having the largest rainbow trout in New Zealand living in it. It’s quite a rocky and slippery river and wading is difficult but the fish are gigantic! The rainbows love fast water and there is plenty of that on this river. There is also a plethora of aquatic insect life on this river so plenty of food to make this trout get big.

Unfortunately, since the rainbow trout are so light colored, they are not real easy to spot in the river like the brown trout are. Also since they are holding in the fastest water in the river, that also makes them much harder to see. But, when you do see them you can’t believe your eyes how big they are.

My last day, Wednesday on the Motu River, I spotted a brown trout that would have easily gone 12+ pounds. He looked like a salmon sitting in the river...just plain huge! Unfortunately the paradise ducks spooked him.

Well, unfortunately I don’t have any photos of big rainbows to show you since I didn’t land any! I caught three nice big rainbows yesterday, got to see them when they jumped but they are super fast and super strong and managed to spit the hook or just break me off entirely. Today, between the highly difficult wading, my new knee and the size of these fish, I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped but just hooking them and playing them for a few minutes is a great treat. The rainbows in the Koranga are big also and I had one charge my fly so hard I almost had it pulled out of my hands. These fish are crazy and stronger than any trout I’ve ever seen anywhere else I’ve ever fished. I cast my fly into a fast riffle going into a big deep pool and the fish hit my fly so hard it just busted the dry fly and dropper right off in one easy motion. I never got to see this particular fish but I know it was a monster. I did hook two other fish on the Ruakitori that jumped clear out of the water and showed themselves quite nicely. Again, BIG FISH!!! I am always amazed at the size of these trout.

Tomorrow I’m off to the South Island.

Wednesday Motu

Today was another beautiful day on the Motu. We headed out to a different section than where we fished on Tuesday in search of some big brownies. Well, we found them allright. I had a cast at a nice fish sitting in a rather precarious spot with a stump just to the right and in front of him and a willow tree to the left and another big snag in the middle. The chances of landing this trout were not good to say the least. Well, I had to have a try, so with just one perfect cast, I hooked the trout which exploded into action and I had a good tug of war to keep him out of all the snags which seemed to be everywhere. I percervered and managed to land a beautiful 8-9 pound brown trout. What a beauty!

The day went on with much the same, casting to large trout. Sometimes I was fortunate enough to land them and sometimes not. I did catch some beauties though and here are a few pics of them.


Tomorrow we are off to the Ruakituri River for the largest rainbows to be had in all of New Zealand. It’s also the eastern most rainbow trout fishery in the country. Frank owns a cabin on the Ruakituri, knicknamed the Ruakituri Hilton. I have high hopes for a big rainbow tomorrow. We’ll spend the night in Gisborne tomorrow night and then I’ll have a town day on Friday while I’m waiting to fly down to Christchurch on the South Island Friday afternoon. It will be Thanksgiving Day in the US. If I don’t get my next blog written in time, Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Ciao for now.....