Merry Christmas!

After a few days of splendid fishing in the Canterbury Region, Scott and I headed North and West to the town of Murchison. We got a tip on a great motor camp to pitch our tent for a few days. New Zealand is a very "road trip" friendly country. Virtually every town has at least one "motor camp"...a place where you can pitch a tent or rent a small cabin, do laundry, cook dinner and even check email.

As we walked into the office of the Murchison Kiwi Park, we were greeted by photos on the wall of our buddy Josh Graffam holding trophy Brown Trout, so we knew we were in the right place. In fact, the proprietors knew many of our friends from Wyoming that had been through there over the years. Lynn and Brent Winter took great care of us during our stay at the Kiwi Park, I would highly recommend it as your basecamp if you ever find yourself in Murchison. Murchison was like being in a place like Dillon, Montana. There was great water in every direction, and it would take an entire season to even scratch the surface on fishing in this region. With literally dozens of trophy trout streams dumping into the Buller River, we had plenty of options to hunt fish while there. Once again, we had great sight fishing to large fish, and found them on a variety of flies. Here's a few more photos to share from our journey.



I'd like to give a shout out to my friend Janice Steiner with this photo of an unbelievable yacht that we spotted while walking the Auckland harbor on our last day. Didn't know you sailed Janice? Janice works for the town of Jackson as our transit coordinator...she does a great job keeping all of our public transportation running very smoothly. Best wishes to all of my readers for a great holiday season and a Happy New Year! More soon!

Blown Away

As the temperature dives below zero again tonight (as it has every night for the past week), my mind drifts back to the South Island of New Zealand. Scott and I were simply blown away at just how unique the fishing was. After years of listening to buddies rave about New Zealand, and months planning this adventure, we just were not sure exactly what to expect. The quality of scenery, people and fishing all exceeded our expectations. After over 30 hours of traveling from Jackson, arriving in Christchurch to pick up our rental car (a very modest Nissan Wingroad wagon) was like getting a huge shot of adrenaline. We decided to hit the regional fish and game office first to secure our fishing licenses. It was here that we got our first tip from a guy working the office named Roger. Our plan was to head straight to Murchison, but like so many of the Kiwis that we met, Roger was delighted to chat and help us along our way to the best possible fishing. We took him up on his advice and headed a couple of hours out of Christchurch to a hidden pullout to camp for the night. The next day, we watched the sun rise along the banks of the River X. Low, clear flows greeted us, along with clear, calm skies. We slowly started walking upstream in search of gold. We went four or five holes without seeing anything, and were maybe wondering if there were any fish in this river at all. Did Roger send a couple of Yanks on a wild goose chase? Scott decided to pop a streamer into a likely looking deeper hole. Sure enough, a monster brown trout came out to swipe it, and then disappeared. That's all we needed to see...there were fish here. We then slowly crept up to the next hole, and sure enough, we spotted what would be a typical fish on this river...a 24" Brown Trout holding in very thin water. It was Scott's turn to cast, so he placed a nymph right down his lane, and bang, fish on. Some of the best fishing we had on the entire trip was on a river that was not initially on our radar. The first two days we spent on this river taught us much of what we needed to know for our trip. Walk slowly and don't overlook any of the water, no matter how shallow or slow. It was also here that we learned that you can catch huge fish blindly, ie, unsighted. (Contrary to what many buddies had told us before coming here). Certainly, when we had the chance to sight fish, we took it. But some of the biggest fish we saw came on blind casts with streamers. Our first two days of fishing and car camping well exceeded our expectations, and could now not wait to head on to Murchison to start checking off the rest of the list. Here's a few more photos I'd love to share. Healthy fish, gin clear waters, and stunning scenery.