Recent NZ Trips – Photo Essay
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My fishing has been in a lull lately in terms of actually landing big fish, but I’ve been out on a number of trips in the last month or so and figured I’d throw some pics up even though they’re completely devoid of hero shots.
I attempted to make my first foray into the salt, but the wharf that I went to fish was full of people. To make a long story short, I watched a bunch of bait-chuckers catch nothing and ended up not even wetting a line.
I’ve been fortunate enough to sneak a couple of day trips into the last month to break up the monotony of the normal work weeks. We ended up making our way through lots of small fish throughout the day, but had a couple of shots at fish in the 3-4 pound range. I got absolutely worked over by a bow in the 4 pound range at one point. Sometimes its just as fun to have a fish go absolutely berserk and get the best of you.
Long distance hook-up:
Awesome colors:
Small water:
Another cool river:
TFM shout out:
The fruits of our labor:
Easter is a huge holiday in NZ, and as a result, I had a 5 day weekend to play with. It would have been difficult to imagine a worse way for the weekend to go. The trip started with my car breaking down 20 minutes into it. I got it towed back home, and my buddy was nice enough to drive up and pick me up. We headed to the river a little behind schedule. The plan was to backpack into the bush further than most people go and camp for a couple of nights. This was made fairly difficult by the high water levels, but we weren’t going to give up. I topped my waders 4 times, and my buddy went for a swim before we finally admitted defeat and set up camp to dry out. I fished for 30 minutes that night, and hooked 2 of the absolute biggest trout of my life, both of which promptly broke off.
We hiked out the next day, fished all day, and hooked exactly 0 fish. Over the entire 4 day trip we covered a solid 10-15 miles of river. I hooked 6 fish, and landed 0. It seriously got to the point where it just got embarrassing. The last fish literally swam up a waterfall, under a log, and broke me off. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it. It was basically just pouring salt in my wounds. The 6 fish that I failed to land included a couple of monsters that I didn’t even see, a fat brownie that would have gone at least 5 pounds, a rainbow that left both of our jaws on the ground after it jumped…estimated at 7-9 pounds, and two rainbows that were in the 5 pound range. My dreams will be haunted for a long time by those fish.
This picture basically sums up the first two days. A picture of my buddy nearly falling in, blurred from my wet camera:
My body was definitely feeling it after four days of non-stop walking on this:
Now that’s a serious spider:
I’m excited to see what Joel tied into on the south island while he was down here. Even with all the bad luck I had (losing huge fish, car breaking down, etc.) it has been an awesome couple of weeks worth of trips. Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze a few more in before the season comes to a close.
Cheers,
Tim. . . I’ve been out on a number of trips in the last month or so . . .
Cheers,
TimComing from a guy in New Zealand that is the best quote I’ve heard in a long time, regardless of number and size of fish landed.
Good stuff Tim! That pic just before the “TFM shout out:” is super cool .. The plants make it really unique.
Nice report Tim! I’m with Cor on the plants, very interesting flora. Would make some great infrared.
Keep ’em coming!
db
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