south island Archives - Montana Wild

South Island Brown Trout 2/3

Montana Wild — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 20:22:10 +0000

Read the first part of this series HERE. After a few weeks on the island we had put some great fish in the net but conditions had been tough. The rivers had blown out twice and most of the fishable days had overcast skies which made spotting tough in lots of the water we were fishing. We pushed through and made the best of it. We spent some time fishing the flats for kingfish which was a wild experience. I think we were a few weeks behind on timing and it seems that the locals feel the fishery is getting heavily pressured and there’s some shady tactics being used by guides with boats. We had a good time despite few kingfish sightings and wen’t back to town before being flow deep into the backcountry.

Headed into the abyss, and hopefully home to many big brown trout.

NZ flats tugger

Headed out in search of kingfish

Kahawai headed back to go smash baitfish

Target spotted. Clear water made it easy to see fish but harder to catch.

Teamwork as Zack tries to bring a brown trout to the net.

A medium sized backcountry brown. A hell of a fighter though.

The longest and arguably the prettiest fish of our trip to NZ.

Josh making light work of a bank side brown trout.

This day we got worked for hours until Josh picked the right bug and flawlessly drifted it until this brown took.

Chasing brown trout in big water meant a slip was inevitable.

Got him netted baby!

Small guy but big engine.

1st fish after the heli drop. Stoke was HIGH

The backcountry was amazing but the fishing was tough! Coming that late in the season meant that the easy to see fish were insanely spooky and picky on flies. We all got into beautiful fish but our hookup to sighting percentage was definitely in the single digits. Finding fast water and taking extra time to try to spot fish in that water made things easier as it seemed these fish hadn’t been pressured as much. Be looking for Part 3 soon.

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South Island Brown Trout 1/3

Montana Wild — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 17:10:14 +0000

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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New Zealand Tahr Hunt – Day 2

Montana Wild — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 17:22:10 +0000

Tahr Camp – Day 2

New Zealand Tahr Hunt – Day 2 started with the crew sleeping in till just after sunrise. With one bull in camp we felt confident in saving our energy for another solid evening hunt. Travis finished up taking care of his hide and skull as the guys fixed up a mean lunch of more tahr meat, potatoes, and onions.

Lunch is going to be protein packed!

Mmmmmmmmm

After filling our bellies and taking a quick snooze in the sun we loaded the packs and started our trek back up the valley.

Ben going for it.

August keeps tabs on “one horn”

A small group descending to the lower grassy faces

This afternoon we decided to go up the opposite side of the head of the valley. We wanted to look further back into the end of the drainage. After getting in position we started picking out tahr all across the upper half of the mountain. A few hours later and a small band of tahr had fed to within 50 yards before winding us and moving off. We had spotted a cool looking one horned bull up high on the mountain. His cape swirled and billowed in the wind and we knew he was a mature bull. After telling Josh I’d shoot him if he didn’t he decided this would be his bull to make a move on. After watching him move lower and lower it was time to make a move to get into shooting position. Josh and Ben set off while myself and August held back and kept an eye on him. Within twenty minutes of the guys being gone the bull had dropped so low we could no longer see him. Just a few minutes later we heard a shot echo through the valley. We picked up our packs and quickly hustled up the drainage to see what had taken place.

Josh and his old bull tahr

As we caught up to the guys Josh was admiring his first tahr. A unique and old one horned beast. We quickly shot photos as light faded and again we had a long packout in the dark followed by another dinner of backstrap and cold beers.

Ben wondering what the story behind old one horn was

Want to see how close the bull got before Josh took his shot? Watch the following as we take you through Day 2 of our hunt!

Special thanks to Ben and August and if you’re interested in hunting any big game animals free range in New Zealand definitely hit up Ben at his website > www.bghnz.co.nz/

Written by : Zack Boughton

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$12K?! Cost Breakdown of Bucknasty Browns II

Montana Wild — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 18:25:50 +0000

$12K for a fishing film?! Some may see our goal on the Kickstarter and think that number is high, but in reality that number is low! Shooting a six week, high-quality production Internationally takes lots of money. Below is our cost breakdown for Bucknasty Browns 2:

-Flights: $1,500 X three anglers = $4,500

-Checked Camera Gear: $100 X four pelican cases = $400

-Van Rental: $6,880.36 (If you can find it cheaper, shoot us a message)

-Van Insurance: $1,170

-Music Licensing: $700-$900/per song X 4 songs = $2,800 (low end and does not even include music for web series)

-iTunes, Amazon hosting: $1,800

TOTAL: $17,550.36

That number is the bare bones! This does not include the following costs:

-Camera Gear (dry bags, extra batteries, power source, housing, drone): over $2,500

-Gas: ????

-Food: ????

-Film insurance: ????

-Kickstarter and Processing Fees: 10% of $12K goals = $1,200

-Cost to edit:???

-Cost to film: ???

-Cost to deliver rewards: ???

As you can see our $12K goal is a very low goal for us to even consider making this film. Take out the Kickstarter fees, processing fees, and cost to produce shirts, hats, streamers, canvas images, and others and we are somewhere well below $12K. Hence why we need your support to make Bucknasty Browns 2! Please, if you enjoy our fishing films and want to see more of them in the future it is imperative that you support the film by clicking here: Bucknasty Browns II

For the small cost of $5 you can help bring this film to life. That is the cost of a beer or a couple sodas. This is a great chance for our long time supporters to give back by giving a very small amount. And if you have any input on what you’d like to see in the film or web series leave a comment, shoot us a message through our social pages or send an email! Thank you to all who supported us and Merry Christmas!

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