Fishing in NZ
Fly fishing in New Zealand presents new challenges to visiting anglers. The general fishing style of sight fishing, while great fun and extremely productive, it takes a little time to master for those who are unfamiliar with it. Once mastered it opens up a whole new and exciting world of fishing as you go hunting for your fish.
The first skill is the spotting of the fish, easy enough at times when the fish are sitting out in shallow water with a light coloured background but most of the time they blend in with their surroundings and it takes a while to develop that hunters eye for spotting the quarry. The best spotting conditions are therefore when the sun is high with the best time to be on the river being through the middle part of the day. Polaroid sunglasses are essential. And yes these big fish do sit out all day in bright sunshine!
Once spotted we approach the fish from directly behind as the fish have a blind spot there. A careful approach is needed and it’s usually possible to get quite close to the fish.
Being able to make an accurate short to medium distance cast will enable you to catch a good number of fish with relative ease. By this I mean you need to be able to present your fly ahead of a fish in such away that the fly will drift down to that fish in a natural dead drift. And if you can present the fly on your first cast with a minimum of false casts then so much the better. Then if you can do the same in windy conditions so much the better as enviably the wind will blow at some stage and having the ability to push a cast into it will produce rewards for you.
Because of the clarity of the water the fish will pick up on strange coloured fly lines zipping over there heads, so for this reason dull natural coloured fly lines are essential. For the same reason, attached to the end of your fly line you will need a relatively long leader of say 14 to 18 feet. You will need to be adept at casting this length leader to be more succesful in NZ.
The fly needs to land far enough ahead of the fish so as not to spook it, if you’re using a nymph it also needs to be far enough ahead to allow the nymph time to sink down to the level of the fish. Your leader needs to be sufficiently long so that the floating section of line lands behind the fish, again sufficiently behind as to not spook it.
The first cast is always the most important one, present the fly well the first time up and you’ll more than likely to hook your fish. The chances of catching a fish probably diminish by 50% for every subsequent cast
