South Island, New Zealand (On A Mouse Year)

I just got back from a great trip down to New Zealand’s South Island. I was down there on a few different photo assignments both fly fishing related. The South Island is my favorite place to trout fish on the planet for a variety of reasons including the challenges of spotting / stalking the fish coupled with the fact that it’s just beautiful there. An added bonus is the Brown Trout can get really big as well despite the fact a great day on the water typically doesn’t mean catching dozens of fish like it can in the States and Patagonia.

This also happens to be a mouse year which, for those of you who don’t know, in short means: The native beech trees historically every seven or so years produce a great deal more (10x to 100x) the number of seeds which is called masting. Non-native mice and rats that feed off of the seeds have such an abundance of food they begin to reproduce at a much greater rate and all of sudden there are far more mouse and rats scurrying around South Island beech forests.

The South Island is known for large and wary brown trout to begin with but on mouse years some fish can add 40% more weight. The mice eventually make it down to the rivers edge on many watersheds where many believe, as I do, that mice actually try to cross the river. I’m sure some accidentally fall in but anecdotal evidence points to the intent to cross and generally mice do this at night and brown trout are known to be nocturnal feeders…

I’ll be posting more images but here are two images of the same fish both above and below the water. We estimate this brown to be in excess of 15lbs but unfortunately didn’t have a net to weigh it.

I’ve tried hard not to post many fish out of the water over the last few years but I’m including the first image below to show the size of the fish as you’ll likely agree that the second image below—which is of the same fish—appears smaller.

Emily Rodger holds a beautiful South Island brown.

Fly Fishing The South Island

I just got back from a trip down to New Zealand’s South Island. If there’s anywhere in the world that represents my happy place, it’s New Zealand. The people constantly blow me away with their kindness, sincerity, and self-effacing humor. It’s the land of 40 million sheep and only 4 million people. Roughly 75% of the total (human) population lives on the North Island.

It goes without saying, that New Zealand is also absolutely stunning. Mt Cook (12,218 feet) essentially rises up from sea level. That’s nearly twice the relief of our highest point in Idaho. It’s green. Super green in many places. There’s wine country. Glaciers. The rivers vary from tiny spring creeks, dry and windy Canterbury freestones, to wild blue-green glacial fed rivers. There’s a huge variety.

The fishing is the icing on the cake and the South Island is without a doubt my favorite place to trout fish. The fish population is not high by North American standards. The browns can be very, very wary. The brown trout can also exceed 12 plus pounds.

If there’s a problem—besides the sand flies—just knowing the fish get so big can set unrealistic expectations. Couple that with the fact that many South Island watersheds don’t have consistent prolific hatches like we do in the West. Sure there are mayflies and caddis but not to the extent that one can expect to see rising fish on any given river on any given day.

My advice to anyone, this really applies to fishing anywhere, is to first really appreciate who you’re with and where you are. I’ve found that if you truly appreciate both of these these things then the fish will often follow.

Scott Murray seconds before landing a nice South Island brown. Scott is the co-owner of River Haven Lodge located near Murchison on the South Island. I was fortunate to have just spent 7 days on the water with Scotty where there were plenty of shenanigans and nonsense. As a guide myself, I cannot say how much I’ve learned from fishing with Scotty over the years.

New Zealand 2017

I recently got back from a great trip to New Zealand's South Island. This trip was met with a lot of wind and rain, but over the course of 20 days there were a few gems.

My trip was divided in two: The first part I spent with a good friend and fellow Ketchum area guide, Zac Mayhew, hiking into backcountry streams and drinking jugs of Speights at any local watering hole we could find. We both made a critical error on day one and bought a couple of meat pies each and put them in our pack to eat later for lunch. Not a great idea unless you like cold and smashed and six-hours-from-the-oven pies. That same day, we spent a rainy night in a tent full of hundreds of sand flies and mosquitos. We were out of the tent very very early making coffee in the rain...

We flew into Christchurch and fished the Canterbury, West Coast and Nelson / Marlborough areas. On at least four or five of our days, we walked a minimum of 15 miles, often putting ourselves in beautiful backcountry settings with no angler in sight. Long walks meant a little less fishing time as we often ended our fishing around 3:30 or so to give us time to make it back to the car by dark.

The second part of my trip was spent at River Haven Lodge near Murchison.

The FlyFish Journal

Below is a small image appearing in the Winter issue (7.2) of The FlyFish Journal. It's of a South Island, New Zealand river at the end of the first day of a great trip. The sand flies incidentally, were gluttons on this piece of water. After three or four days of having the tops of my hands obliterated by these little bastards I finally converted a pair of socks into sand fly resistant gloves...

The FlyFish Journal issue 7.2