South Island Brown Trout 1/3
If you didn’t catch some of our posts through social media you missed out on the fact that we went to New Zealand this spring in search of big brown trout. It was amazing and we could write a whole book about it, but it’s summer in Montana and we are insanely busy. We also hunted Himalayan tahr which you can read about and watch HERE. With that said New Zealand is almost as amazing as it seems. Some days it’s better and some days worse, but overall a place we were stoked to finally make it to. This had been a bucket list trip for myself and to finally see it realized was something special. For now I’ll leave you with photos from this amazing trip and be looking for two more parts down the road. If time allows we will definitely write more about the trip. Shoot us an email if you’ve got questions or want us to talk about something specific.
Months of preparation both researching maps and also flies. The final organization takes place just days before we leave.
Travel was about 14 hours from Bozeman to NZ. Not bad considering we were leaving winter and headed to brown trout paradise.
Flying in and seeing river after river made what once was a dream now a reality.
Day 1 on the river and this was Fish #1. Life was more than good!
Next Level Stoke
Zack’s 2nd fish of Day 2. We started the trip off hot and thought this was going to be the daily occurrence. Rain had bumped the creek and a streamer sealed the deal on the hike out.
We soon found out that we were going to see unusual amounts of rain for this time of year. Blown rivers, wet gear, and minimal dry fly fishing made some days tougher than others.
Fishing on the front of an impending cyclone. Beautiful water but no fish this day.
Dry fly eater after almost a week of down time. Rivers clear fast after big rains and a risk to hike deep into the backcountry paid off.
Upriver in search of more hungry browns.
Trails in New Zealand don’t always exist even though they are supposed to. Having wet feet is pretty much a necessity even when there is a trail. Fortunately the rewards are always worth the effort.
Cicada smasher. We missed the best part of the hatch but still found a few eager to look up and take the big dry fly.
Written by Zack Boughton
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