 We're Dave & Amelia Jensen, a couple of Canadian fly fishers from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. We travel to New Zealand to fly fish for 2 or 3 months each year. We hope to outline New Zealand fly fishing, and make sure that people have some useful information about the hard realities of fly fishing in New Zealand as well as the enjoyable facets. There are things that we all have to deal with and be aware of when traveling, and New Zealand has its share of these things. The fly fishing can be wonderful, but it isn't easy. That's more to do with the variable weather and a few other factors. The 10+ pound fish are a draw, but we want to make sure you know what you are getting into. We just began to lay this page out in Nov, 2010, and will update/edit it many more times. This page is an ongoing work in progress, meant to help others.
First, we are not New Zealand guides. If you want to be guided, we recommend that you look up our friend Serge Bonnafoux, Fish New Zealand. He is based out of Hanmer Springs, NW of Christchurch. He is a full service guide to the north-central part of the south island. He can provide single or multi day fly fishing trips with a variety of accommodations. Access to his fishing waters is hiking, 4x4, mountain bike, or helicopter. Literally, there is a massive opportunity of waters to fish with Serge. The information and concepts laid out on this page started with us taking a trip with him and becoming quite good friends through the years. While some of the information here appears to eliminate need for a guide, nothing is further from the truth. As guides ourselves, we must emphasize that everyone should hire a guide or fish with an experienced sight fisherman to start their time in NZ in order to be successful.
Important Links you can't live without:
Water Flows - If you aren't paying attention
to the weather link above, you could drown. Don't be misinformed.
Pay attention. The weather forecast should already tell you what the
river flows will be doing. NZ weather forecasters don't miss a front
dumping 200mm (8") of rain on their 3 day forecast.
John Kent: "South Island Trout Fishing Guide". Buy this book. Don't even think of going to NZ without it. It won't tell you everything but it's the place to start for foreigners. Pay attention to the minor details and hidden info. The book shops at Auckland and Christchurch Int'l airports will have it, but you're advised to pick them up on line ahead of time and read it. Why wouldn't you do your homework if the trip is one you've wanted to do for so long? "Brown Trout Heaven" by Zane Mirfin: if you can find it, buy this book. MapWorld.co.nz - bottom of Columbus St in Christchurch. If you want free maps online - the entire country's detailed maps are found here.
Sexy Loops NZ page
- A good page to detail more of what we're talking about here.
Fly Shops: BioSecurity - If you are bringing camping gear, fishing gear, etc into the country, you will have to declare it to customs and you will have to go through biosecurity. They may take something that isn't clean, or isn't allowed, or they may take their time to clean it. Make sure that you follow the rules. Only travel with clean, dry gear. And make sure that you leave your felt soled boots at home, they aren't allowed in NZ. There's a serious didymo problem spreading like wildfire through NZ streams and we need to take responsibility and do all we can to not spread it any further. Make sure you know the rules before you travel so you know what you may/not be allowed in the country with. Guides - There are other guides in other regions of New Zealand. Some are quite expensive. Ask if they feel the pressure to get you on a 10 pound fish - if so, is this the kind of pressure you want to experience on your vacation? If so - great! If not, see if there's another guide who simply takes you fishing, shows you how, and points out some of the other waters to try. Serge offers a very good middle ground and is very amiable. Make sure you communicate well with whomever you contact, and try to properly convey what you are hoping for. If the guide 'gets' what you are looking for and you 'get' what the guide offers and it's a match, then you'll enjoy yourself. Bad guide experiences are 1/2 the guest, 1/2 the guide responsibility. Communicate with each other and treat each other with compassion - you might make a friend for life. We did with Serge & his wife, Sharron. About how we fish & some things to consider:
Sandflies. I used to cruise timber for the Alberta Forest Service in a foothills - mountainous region in Canada. Every once in a while I had to cruise cutblocks in the north-east area of our district where it's a low elevation, swampy bit. The flies and mosquitoes are hideous. I remember one day, I swatted my hand in the air and grabbed at the black flies. On one swath, I swatted and closed my hand to make a fist on the flies. I grabbed 2 dozen, making black fly mush, and didn't put a dent in the 10,000 flies swarming me. When I made notes on my clipboard, it was all I could do not to freak out for the insects crawling on me. I never thought I'd see anything worse. Then I fished the west coast of New Zealand. One day I found myself with an 8 pound brown rising in a trough 25 feet above me. It refused my fly and I had to change. My hands were black with sandflies, my shirt crawling, my neck hairline alive. I had already used a bottle of deet. Undeterred, the sandflies fed. I barely got that fly tied on. I was simply too rattled to fish properly and made an awful cast. The sandflies are hideous at times. And they hurt when they bite. And the bloody welts they leave itch to beat hell for up to 3 days. They are the reason fly fishers don't wear shorts in NZ. The goofy looking 'trend' of long johns under shorts is self preservation against sandflies. You will want to drink bug juice. The trouble is, if camping, you'll be covered in oily bug juice as you hop into bed at night. You'll want a sleeping bag liner or a thin pair of pjs. Sandflies are worst on the west coast and in the fiordlands.
Food - There is a food store chain called 4-square markets that exist in most small towns. It has everything you need and is pricier than the bigger towns where grocery chains like "New World Market", "PakNSave" or "Big Fresh" offer far better selection. If you are in the larger towns or cities, there are fresh markets and wonderful produce. The dairy is very rich. Meat is definitely different - the cows are grass fed and some people find it tasting a little off compared to N America. There's good availability of lamb, chicken, pork, and beef. Restaurants are pricey in the more remote locations - $30 each for an avg plate of fish & chips isn't uncommon. Fine dining exists in fly fishing lodges or in restaurants in bigger towns and cities. If you're fishing the back country you won't be anywhere near fine dining.
Water types
Streams & Rivers - The first question you need to ask people when discussing rivers with the locals is if the river is clear or tannin. If you love to sight fish, a tannin river is out on cloudy days and can be tough even on sunny ones. If you get the right angle, fish glow, but if there's no bench to look out from, it can be tough for new sight fishers. If you're told the river is clear, it's likely to offer good sighting. Ask if it's a popular one, if there's brush along the edge (which might be miserable to walk through, but offers good back drop for cloudy day contrasts to sight fish). Don't worry so much about lots of fish, just if there's a few. If there's few people and clear water and a few nice fish, it's a winner. There's a ton of fish movement with the varying seasons. Smaller waters see their fish leave as the water levels recede. You could do a lot of walking and not see a fish once conditions change. Of course, the river the stream flows into might have a bumper population for the summer months.
Massive Rivers - Rivers like the mighty Clutha, Buller, Grey, or Haast. Absolute monsters if it rains - and it often does. We don't fish these often but if you break them down into the braided channels, or look for rocky outcroppings along the edges, you'll find fish, and often they'll be big. Here's a few short videos of New Zealand. We've been holding back our best video and editing for a series of dvds that we plan to begin producing in 2011. The first dvd will be "Sight Fishing Tactics"; followed by "Brown Trout on the Edge"; "Spring Creeks"; and detailing the south island of New Zealand geared toward fly fishing travel. These things take time to develop but we have a couple of them laid out. The ones below are just for YouTube fun. :)
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Kiwi
Maps - South Island Complete Drivers Atlas. Buy it. Order it online
well before you go. It goes hand in hand with Kent's book below and
by studying both together, you'll hit the ground running. If you're
paying to travel to fly fish in NZ for 2 weeks or more, buy both.
Mouse
Years - We've hit one mouse year thus far. If you've looked into New
Zealand fly fishing, you know that a heavy beech forest mast
produces beech seeds which fall to the forest floor and rodent
populations explode. Hence, trout of 5 or 6 pounds become trout in
the 7 to 9 pound class quickly. After a mouse year, the fish can
drop weight in a hurry, and while they typically won't drop right
back to pre-mouse year weight, they'll definitely be lighter than
peak weight. They have to use that mousey weight to spawn and
compete with other bigger fish, and after the spawn they need to
endure winters in very low productive, generally rain swollen or
cold weather impacted waters. But while mouse invasions are confined
to beech forests, the trend is across the entire island of
healthier, bigger fish because beech masts tend to come with more
favorable weather trends, which means winters are a little warmer
and the weather more stable - less negative impact on the trout. If
you are specifically looking to fish beech forests to catch a
monster brown trout, those opportunities do exist, but you won't be
alone. It has a cult following, a large cult following that spreads
world wide. Popular rivers are very popular. Give the map to the
right a look - the green is the beech forests. It's not as though
the entire south island is beech forests and the rivers that flow
through them get their fair share of attention. But, you can find
pockets of isolation. In the 2010 mouse year, in nearly 3 months of
fishing, we did not run in to any other anglers. That's
pretty special, but it took a lot of planning and deduction as to
weather patterns and anticipated angler movement, as well as fishing
waters that get very little mention on internet sites, guide sites,
books, or in holiday parks/campgrounds. It worked. 
