More success with South Island fishing!!

Before heading back up North, we just couldn't resist doing a few more touristy things...so we decided to do the worlds first ever Bungy Jump, a Sky Dive, white water rafting and the shotover JetBoat! The Bungy Jump was definitely the scariest out of all the activities! Absolutely amazing though...along with the Sky Diving! that was quite scary but myself and Alex both agree we loved every second of it!! The white water rafting I would recommend to anybody...amazing experience and would love to do it again...and the same with the shotover JetBoat! Travelling 80 kilometres an hour to a wall and then turning at the last second sure does get that heart pumping! was a good wake-up call for sure!!

After finishing the activities our first stop was Diamond Lake and the weather conditions were just perfect!! There was no wind and it was nice and sunny...warm with insects hatching off! Plenty of damsels, dragon flies, blow flies, bumble bees and cicada! spotting the fish was so much easier than on a windy day and we were able to catch a fish each was really good fun!! Catching fish on an Orange Stimulator and Green Stimulator, missing a fish on a Black Humpy.

Heading away from Diamond Lake we headed towards the Ahuriri where we did some free camping for a couple of days! thankfully the weather was good to us and again the fish were feeding! Heading from Omarama we saw a bridge that crossed over the Ahuriri and decided to stop and have a little look, seeing about 5 fish off the bridge almost instantly, thats when we decided to stop and stay for a couple of nights! In the morning we headed out to try and catch a couple...which turned out to be about 20 between us with Alex catching a lovely 4lb Brown Trout which took a size 10 black tungsten pheasant tail! Again seeing more fish than we caught, but the sport was great! Lovely river and amazing settings too!

After having the success we did on Ahuriri we decided to head off further North and travelled to Twizel. After stopping off for a quick pie and finding out some more local information we decided to head to the Tekapo canal and have a go around one of the Salmon Farms...only to see if we could catch the biggest fish of the trip so far! I set up with a floating line with two large lures on, whilst Alex set up with an intermediate with two large lures on also. Within minutes Alex had takes and after losing a fish he was more than determined to catch one! I lost one along the way as well! After around 30 minutes Alex managed to land his first one of many! Sharing just the one rod we had tremendour success! After seeing nobody else catching a fish we thought we did well to get a couple each! But the biggest was still to come! Hooking into a fish close by and not seeing it for about 2 minutes, I knew it was a big fish! finally dragging it up to the surfice we could see it was a pretty big fish...the only thing we had to do was land it!! 5 minutes later it was in the net! We estimate it was a rainbow around 11-12lbs!! not the nicest fish of the trip but the biggest by about 4lbs!

Travelling further up North we headed to the Rangitata, just past Geraldine on the Cantebury Plains. After opening numerous gates, hitting rocks the size of boulders, scratching the car a little, driving a little more and avoiding the cattle we finally made it to the riverside! The sun was shining and the weather didn't seem to be too bad! Then we stepped out of the car and realised the wind was about as powerful as when we jumped out of the Sky Diving plane!! It was blowing at about 80-100 ks/h...but wanting to fish the river so badly we just carried on without a care in the world! The river just looked fantastic...when we put the pictures up you'll understand why we fished it! Alex tried his best to cast into the wind but everytime it just ended up at his feet! So I decided to go with a couple of streamers! Only just managing to get a cast across the river we both struggled away for the first hour! Alex decided he had had enough, so sat down on the edge of the river with his line being dragged under in all directions! Just before he shouted over to me that he had one on, I missed one about 3lbs!! Absolutely gutted...but at the same time was so happy Alex had caught one! Carrying on through the day we had success on huge size 6 stoneflies! Great success again on another South Island River!

The plan is now to keep heading North as we leave the South Island in a week and two days! Hoping to fish the Waimakariri, the Arnold river and the Broken river on the way back up North and then we will hopefully work for about 4 days around Nelson and earn some money! We will add pictures as soon as we can!! Ciao for now guys!!

photo scrapbook of the last two weeks

Well...after being on the road for two weeks, we've caught plenty of fish and had plenty of laughs along the way!! We dropped Lewis off at the airport today, and he's heading back home to carry on working in the building trade!!

So...what did we catch? and what on? Well we caught Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout...along with one hell of a Kawahai!! The rivers we ended up fishing within the two week period were:

1st feb: Pokaitu stream: It fished well during the evening, but had a fantastic evening rise, we took 3 fish around the 1lb-2lb mark for dinner, when we had cajun spiced fish on toast for dinner!! We caught most of our fish using the trio method, with a size 10 stimulator as the dry, and then any two nymphs seemed to work!

3rd Feb: Waipunga River: Having been told by one of the local fishermen in the Fishing and Hunting shop in Taupo, we decided to head over to the Waipunga River. Having got lost of the previous day we decided to head back after seeing the road look just like the track near the Rangataiki River, stoopping on a bridge we could see what looked to be a nice brown trout! Alex decided to try his luck and set up to have a couple of casts!! After the second cast the fish took a little Mary which was falling apart at the time, but being on the bridge we were trying to figure out just how we were going to land the fish!! Lewis being Lewis decided to put his wading boots on and jumped off the bridge into the river, and here's the pictures to proove it!!

5th Feb: Whirinaki: Pat O'keefe was very generous in spending his time and energy with us in the Morning! One of the friendliest and awesome fishermen we've ever met, he was very helpful and knew exactly where the fish would be lying! We caught some fantastic fish and hooked into more than we landed! Fish up to the 6lb mark...and absolute mint condition! I've never caught fish like it before in my life! The hardest fighting fish I know, I've never been snapped off so much on 6lb line before.

7th Feb: Kawahai - thornton, Rangataiki estuary: After asking around the local fishing shops we were told to head over to Thornton (which reminded me of back home instantly!) Fishing in the surf is not something we all get to do at once, but it was a nice change! we fished right out in the surf and you could see the Kawahai in the waves, we knew it was only a matter of time before we got to hook up!...3 hours later, we had one hell of a result!! Alex battled it out with a 2 kilo Kawahai and eventually landed it! Here are some cool pictures!!

8th Feb: Waioeka just outside Opotiki: Now this was a great River to fish, and we all wished we had spent longer on it, Myself and Alex will definitely be fishing this river again! We caught fish up to 6lbs again, and they were fighting fit! This was the first River where you could do some proper sight fishing, and that is exactly what I did. Whereas Alex and Lewis had great success fishing the bigger pools.

8th and 9th of Feb: Ruakituri River: This is a fantastic river and holds plenty of fish, although it proved a hard river to catch on, most success came later on with the evening rise! Fishing the deep slow sections of the river at night and the faster flowing water during the day. It wasn't really worth fishing during the day, especially with the distance we had to walk to find a fish or two and then they were hard to catch, it felt like we were putting in too much effort for the smaller fish. Although when it came to the evening rise, the fish were much easier to catch, again using the trio method with a couple of really simply mary's, or rubber legged creations.

10th Feb: Lake Otamangakau: Heading back up in the Taupo area, we decided to have a go at fishing what is known as the Big O, as we stepped out of the car and looked out onto the canal part of the Lake, where we had been told to give a go due to the cold water, we could see some pretty big grey clouds and thought nothing of it. Lewis managed for around 15 minutes the heavens opened and we all got absolutely soaked! We headed back to the campsite and grabbed some food and had a couple of beers along with it. Lewis was sure that we would catch later on, so we decided to head back that night, it was almost like we had done something right for a change! We hit fish after fish after fish! The first, second and third casts all connected and landed fish! Great sport and we'll probably head back there for a night session at some point along the trip.

11th Feb: Lake Otamangakau: We fished the canal part of the lake again in the morning, hoping that it would be as good as the night before, but we didn't have such luck! We then decided to head over to Whakapapa, where we didn't see too many fish, but Alex was broken off by quite a big fish, around 3lbs, whereas myself and Lewis didn't catch anything, but saw one or two. After that we decided to head to the Mangatutu. After fishing for around an hour and catching the smallest fish of the trip it was time for Lewis to pack his rod up and put his fishing stuff away for the last time in New Zealand.

We will update you as much as we can and put plenty of pictures on as usual as soon as we can!! Enjoy the pictures!!

On the Road

over the last few days we have finally got on the road, and fished numerous rivers!

one river we fished call the ngongotaha which flows into Roturua lake and we saw fish of 15-20lb!! we hooked double figure fish too but only landed smaller fish such as in the pictures:



We also fished on the river Rangitaiki which was worth the 3 hours of driving around lost on forestry roads (dirt uneven tracks) to in the end turning saround and driving out, we then stumble accross a stretch of river where once again we must of had over 50fish each:

we also went fishing on the Waipunga river which was another event as we almost ran out of petrol 50miles away from the nearest petrol station but luckily someone sold us 10litres of petrol which got us back!! Alex Caught his first proper new zealand brown which was around 3lb but the picture is on lisa's camera!!

we off to fish with a guide called Pat O'Keefe tommorrow morning which will be good to finally know where we are going for a bit of time!!!!!!

so bye from us for know

Hunting for Kahawai

With the car all packed and ready to go, we set off fishing on another little adventure! But we didn't really realise how much of an adventure it was really going to be! Arriving at Cornwallis, we got out in high hopes, and after trekking for 10 minutes in the heat, we arrived at the monument. After stopping shortly due to picture taking, we decided to try and pass through the jungle like terrain to get to the ocean...which didn't quite work! With the heat and energy being lost...tempers started to show, and we decided to head back to try and find a different spot.

We eventually managed to find an area called Whatipu we climbed up onto a hill near the smallest bay, to try and see some fish, instantly we saw fish around 4-5lbs called Kahawai...which can be mistaken for Mullet. After spotting them Alex decided it was time to crack on with the fishing and in an instant was fishing away! I got the camera ready, whilst Lewis decided to tackle the bay from a different angle, he ended up seeing what we think was a big King fish, around the 60lb mark!!! However with no luck after about 15 minutes, we decided it was time to change tactics. We used burley to attract the smaller fish, which would hopefully attract the bigger fish in the long run. In the end we didn't manage to catch any decent sized fish...but Alex managed to catch some Gar fish...fouled hooked! He also lost a Kahawai which was unfortunate, but it kept us going until 6.30, and then it was time for home!!

Hopefully heading off tomorrow morning for the start of our big journey! So will keep you posted throughout!

THE BEGINNING

Now a week since we left the UK for New Zealand and with it came our first outing on a New Zealand river, the Waihou River just south of the town of Tirau. As seems to be the case with this trip we once again suffered errors but today it was only the fact that between the 3 of us none of us managed to take a camera!!!

We were taken to the river by Neil, he is an international representative of the New Zealand fly fishing team and is in this years commonwealth team. The river, which was decieving in both depth and flow was just full of small wild rainbow trout around half a pound, all 3 of us had at least 50fish each, Lewis landing the biggest of around 1.5lb. No monsters on our first outing but a good start!

Another great thing that happened today was that we got a car for $1100, $900 under our limit which is great!! (pics will be up tommorrow).

that is all for now!!

First taste of New Zealand fishing!

During the day we went for a real good trek...in the heat of the day someone was bound to get sun burnt! With no o-zone layer, hardly and pollution...and no sun cream on! Lewis ended up looking like a lobster...the back of my legs are pretty bad, but amazingly Lisa was the only one who didn't get burnt! With no fish caught we ended up trekking back home! With the golf course right by, we never realised that so many would end up in the sea! As the tide went out and walking along the beach, we found around 50 golf balls...in Lewis's eyes it was money making time, so we didn't leave a single one!

Once finally arriving in New Zealand and settling in...we managed to get out fishing!! Lisa and Lewis went out with Dan on Thursday evening, after the Red Snapper! Something finally went right on the trip and Dan put us on the fish instantly! We just didn't look back, and the bites and the fish just carried on coming! Fish and chips for tea!! How much more at home could we feel!!

After a good nights sleep in the tent with Oliver...Dan's son, I finally got a shot at going after the Red Snapper! Success again!! Smiles all around!! It was definitely worth it after waking up at 6.00am!