Kern River Fly Fishing Forum - Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1

Rockstar Flyfisherman

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Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1
Mar 15^th, 2012, 10:41pm

First thing is first, before you all get all hot and bothered about going to New Zealand I must telll you this. It's absolutly beautiful, the weather is completely unpredictable, you must be determined and not lose faith, also you will be fishing the most beautiful rivers you've ever seen with perfect looking holding spots yet you will only see 1 fish in 3km of water which I personally experienced, but they are big, even HUGE!

That being said my trip stated off in L.A. on February 18th in which I woke up out of nowhere completely miserable with chest congestion, cough, horrible body aches and exhuastion as well as a 102.7 degree fever. The first leg of the flight from LAX to Auckland took 13 hours, so you can't imagine how miserable I was and hoped the plane would just crash. Anyways, I made it and did my best to nurse myself back to health, I left on the 22nd from Wellington to the South Island via ferry and met up with Zee with our rental car near Christchurch in the middle of nowhere. We immediately hit the road and made it all the way to Wanaka.
Sunset on the East Coast of New Zealand's South Island

This was hard to get used to and never really did.

Here is the first river we fished, still feeling sick as hell but I toughed it out. This is the Hawea River

Ever seen such blue water coming from the bottom of a dam????

No luck here so we moved onto another place a local had mentioned, Timaru River, more like a creek. Sand flys were out and funny thing is they don't bother you until 2 days after you've been bit.

Alas, we caught our first fish of the trip. Not quite what we had flown thousands of miles for though..

Can you tell how happy Zee is :fireangry: :fireangry:

Well we moved on and all we could think of was going to Gore. And we did, but the weather was about to turn.

It poured rain for a day and a half and blew out the Matura River big time

Mind you this is their August, so what to do now??? All 3 rivers I had in mind are flooded, everyone kept telling us to go to Te Anau, so we left Gore and headed there.

Weather was better here and FINALLY, we found fishable water with fish of size we could be proud of on the Waiu River.
And it was BIG water, streamers didn't work but nymphing with a bobber was the ticket

I quickly hooked up with a large rainbow that jumped then ran like hell and broke me off, the only break off I would have of the trip. After that I broke my 7wt. AGAIN so I was down to 1 rod already my trusty 5wt. 2 more fish hookups later that popped off Zee finally hooked up and brought in the first big one of the trip.
Here she is a beautiful average sized bow for this river.

Then I finally landed my first big un of the trip.

These fish were solid and fought just like steelhead on steroids, so much fun and so beautiful.
Another fatty I landed

And another

Finally after 7 days without any booze I had to have 1 for a victory celebration, we had finally caught fish to be proud of.

We also fished the river the next day with similar luck, probably 4 fish each. We never saw anyone else even hook up.

Diddymo sure is an ugly sight, like walking on fox skins, but it did make the wading i

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Rockstar Flyfisherman

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Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1
Reply #1 - Mar 15^th, 2012, 10:44pm

Diddymo sure is an ugly sight, like walking on fox skins, but it did make the wading in the huge fast river easy for footing.

Later on this afternoon we decided to go hit up another smaller river, cuz we were exhausted wading the small stretch of the Waiu. We took a look at the Upukeora River which was still slightly stained from the rains.

No luck here so we drove down the road to where the river enters Lake Te Anau, a MASSIVE natural lake. Too me this spot looked good, deep drop off with a current so I started throwing streamers and then surprisingly hooked up. After 2 unbuttons and Zee losing something massive due to his hook getting straightened I finally caught 1, a feisty rainbow.

This is also where I had my first of many encounters with a large eel. Scared the crap out of me at first but then I got used to them. Notice how horrible the weather is.

This was a very exciting 2 hours we had here with 3 hook ups 1 of which was a monster and we suspect was an eel based on how it was moving, and 1 fish landed. Now with most rivers still all muddy and blown out we decided to go fish South Mavora Lake cuz we had heard from some Aussies that it was really good fishing. So off we went the next morning.

On the way to the lake

Finally the lake, so beautiful

And I think we were at the right spot since we found out where the most famous guide in New Zealand was with his client this very day Wink

Zee's tourist shot

Off to the inlet where the shallows were we went.

This day was a tough day though, we only ended up with 1 fish a piece.
Zee pulling streamers

This one, is the 1 and only 1 we kept for dinner while we were down there.

It's hard to tell but this is about a 6' eel that came right up to my boot in the lake.

The Marora River that flowed into the lakes looked good but after 2km and seeing only 1 but big fish that I scared we passed on it.

Still pulling all the way till dusk.

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Rockstar Flyfisherman

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Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1
Reply #2 - Mar 15^th, 2012, 10:49pm

Well, the lake fishing was tough and the weather was beautiful so we went to the Oreti River which we had heard from a DOC officer (Department of Conservation) that it was clear and fishable. And we got our first real taste of sight fishing and only saw 5 fish in ~7km of walking, but they were big and all browns.
Just like old times on the East Side

Our first sighting

Me casting to him first, Zee couldn't spot a fish to save his life.

Zee getting ready since I had no luck.

Luckily the fish were not as skittish as we had read about.

Well no luck so we pressed on, but we did come back to another one we casted to without any luck. This time we got lucky, well Zee did, I once again crapped out.

His personal best probably about 8lbs and 28-30" :?: This would be the only fish of the day though Sad

With such good weather we headed to the Eglinton River but it was late evening when we got there so sight fishing was a bust. It was beautiful though, and the next day we went to the Milford Sound.

Sand flies were out

Milford Sound the next day.

Found this guy floating near shore in the Sound

After the Milford Sound we hit up the Hollyford River, it was absolutly stunning, and depressing. At about 3km walk only one fish was seen in such pristine beautifly perfect water for fishing and fish to live in you'd swear.

Zee casting, eventhough we didn't see anything...

I've become a professional wader now :rockon:

The last run you can see just downstream of me is where I saw the 1 fish I scared, Zee was mad so we left.

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Rockstar Flyfisherman

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Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1
Reply #3 - Mar 15^th, 2012, 10:53pm

We decided to go back to our one mystery hot spot at Te Anau! Fishing sucked, 2-1/2 hours and no hits, then around 9pm I hooked up. The browns were in town tonight, we had twilight until about 9:40pm.

My first brown of the night and of the trip, at least 1 that was over 4 inches

Then Zee got one, and by now eels were surrounding us, kinda freaky but I was used to them now.

Then I had another and my PB brown, this is all within 20 minutes.

That would be it for the night and we knew the weather was going to bust loose with rain so we headed to Queenstown to shower and have a bed to sleep in. While in the Adrenaline capital of NZ, I endulged a little at the Kawaru Bridge.

Yes, I went all the way down on the initial fall just to my shoulders, they did not lower me into the river.

Well now it was time to do some fishing since the weather had cleared although the Matura was almost fishable was now unfishable again Sad

So I headed towards Glenorchy to an area Artin mentioned to me.
Lake Wakatipu with fresh snow capped mountains, yes it is supposodly summer time there. Locals were surprised.

First we hit up Diamond lake with no luck, and the fished jumping were all small anyways.

Diamond Creek was more like we're all used to, we did see some nice fish but this is all I caught, and Zee, well he caught one that would make flybob jealouse Cheesy

Well, the trip was starting to wind down before we needed to start making our way to Christchurch to go to Sydney, Australia so we headed back down to Te Anau for one more shot at monsters. Notice how horrible the weather was.

Well 3rd time was a bust, nada and it was cold, windy and rainy. Next day we drove by the Whitestone which amazing was fairly clear so we fished it. Saw like 3 fish in 5km and I caught the only one, a sweet bow!!!!

Now where to go? I had 2 more areas on the map we hadn't hit that were within reach so we drove up to Omarama. This place was awesome, and warm which was nice. The first evening we hit it I caught tons of 10" bows, nothing exciting but at least I was catching lots of fish that were able to bend my rod and lost 2 others, and scared off a 30" brown!! So we knew big ones were here. Zee didn't catch anything Shocked

ops:
One the way we stopped by the world famous Stu's Flyshop.

Then went fishing here

The next day was amazing! Caught tons of fish, covered about 8km of water and we had clear skies ALL DAY, on the Ahuriri River.
Average bow

This one was about 18" so they were getting bigger the further downstream we went.

I sight fished this guy, and it turned out to be a skinny brown.

One of Zee's bows, this one really resembled an Eagle Lake Rainbow, with a huge gash of course.

Zee spotted this guy, and he turned out to be sick or something. Didn't fight and looked like he was post spawn or something.

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Rockstar Flyfisherman

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Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1
Reply #4 - Mar 15^th, 2012, 10:58pm

Well, this was pretty much it. We did go fishing the next day up around the Mt Somers area. Pretty, but not much luck, and this picture doesn't do the area justice, we were surrounded by snowcapped mountains.

Zee's one catch, a perch of all things.

One last shot before we un suit and get ready to go back to the city life in Christchurch which was a total disaster scene still sadly, then over to Sydney, Australia. Next time you'll see this pose will be in Slovenia in September this year.

So that's the story of my 2-1/2 week journey in New Zealand, it is not a place for the non-energetic, or the ones who get dissapointed and give up easily. The fish are easy to catch in my opinion but finding them is the challenge as well as the wild card Mother Nature. It was so great seeing my best fishing bud Zee, last time we fished was in 2010 in the Czech Republic It took me 2 full weeks to FULLY recover from being sick, so sick I didn't even want to go but I knew I had to and it was worth all the pain and suffering. Like the Trout Bum Diaries Kiwi Camo, "there are those who spend there life dreaming about things they want to do, then there are others that make those dreams happen, I'm one of them."

Mike
P.S. if any of you go there pick up some of Guy's Pink Sallies size 8 would be perfect!!!

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ronh Silver Member Posts: 183 Gender:	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #5 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 7:27am Mike, Looks like you had a great trip. Thanks for sharing all of the pictures. I enjoyed your report very much. Can't wait until your Slovenia trip report. One other nice thing I hear about New Zealand, is that there are no poisonous snakes there. Ron
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jgflyfish New Member Posts: 48 Gender:	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #6 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 8:58am Nice photos and great adventure! JG
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one2fish Platinum Member FFF CI Posts: 574	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #7 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 9:26am Mike, What a trip, and that place you and Zee plan to hit later this year should be a blast. Mark
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fishinXJ Diamond Member SSFFC Conservation Chair, KRFF Posts: 2411 Gender:	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #8 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 9:27am How cool! Stunning photos but the friendship makes the trip! Shane
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Kenaitze Silver Member Posts: 208	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #9 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 9:42am Wow! Soo Cool! Thanks for the great read and inspiring pics! ~ Dave
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MarFly Gold Member Posts: 361 Gender:	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #10 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 9:51am Incredible post. Truely living your dreams. Thanks for the ride. Mark
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ryan Platinum Member Posts: 752	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #11 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 10:20am Thanks Ryan
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TECH

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Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1
Reply #12 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 10:55am

That first pic is frameworthy! Man those rainbows look strong enough to pull your rod out of your hand. With their big tails and strong shoulders they remind me of the KRRs I've cought in the wilderness on the NF Kern.Love the humpback browns! You guys tore it up all over the place, true fishaholics. I also loved the saying from the kiwi camo video. If you don't follow your dreams you will regret it later. Thanks for the insparation and great pics! Time to pull the pack out of the office and stair at maps.

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SSFFC flypimp for life.

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petundra Silver Member Posts: 237	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #13 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 2:03pm Awesome report and pictures...I was having a super craptacular day at work and your pictures took to me to a very happy place for about 15 minutes. That 8lb brown was a monster Thanks for saving my brain from exploding Adam
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Windtalker Gold Member Posts: 493 Gender:	Re: Czech vs American Down Under (Pic Heavy) 1 Reply #14 - Mar 16^th, 2012, 10:39pm Wow, spectacular! Beautiful water & country guys. Too bad you got so sick. Thanks for the great trip photos. You will love Slovenia. I really enjoyed my visit there and would love to fish their rivers. Have a blast! Thanks!
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