I called my friend John in Detroit and said, “Mate, time we got back to New Zealand, it’s been far too long!” With John, there are no ifs or buts! Within 24 hours, flights and accommodation were booked and a rough plan to fish around the Lumsden area was put into place. Next phone call was to my two New Zealander buddies, expat Matt who lives here and Joe who lives there. Within minutes they were also in; John and I would join them halfway through our trip in the Central Otago region.

And so, a trip of what turned out to be two contrasting halves started evolving.

I’ll be brief with the Lumsden half. Essentially it was a struggle. Despite the beautiful rivers, the great people and the typically stunning New Zealand landscapes, we struggled.

Drought, warm low water. Plus, a perfect storm of fishers from all over making their post-Covid pilgrimage to this area, in turn added to by an overflow of anglers from the North Island, which was being hammered by storms and cyclones. It seemed every man and his fly rod had fished each beat in this region to a froth.

A cold front moved through during our stay which offered some promise of respite from the drought conditions, but also meant rain and a fast-dropping barometer, and the fish temporarily shutting down even more.

We didn’t catch a lot of fish, but we got to hone our polaroiding skills, and public relations on how to avoid confrontation with another fisher blatantly jumping you on your beat!

Slightly crestfallen, we packed our bags and headed to the Central Otago region to catch up with Matt and Joe. The pressure was on, especially for me! John had flown halfway across the world and the fishing so far had been tepid at best.

Timing is everything

We were hoping the cicadas on the Central Otago lakes were still active. Alas, the cold front and rain put a stop to this, but trout don’t easily forget to look up for chunky morsels of food. Despite the lack of cicadas on the wing, we managed to polaroid and catch many fine browns on large dry flies. The sight of these fish homing in on our flies, then the slow motion opening of their mouths and closing of the jaws was hypnotising, and as visual as watching it in 3D at an Imax theatre. Pride restored.

The next day, the rivers had settled from the heavy rain two days previously, and we headed to a superb river not far from Joe’s cabin. Crystal-clear water, high banks to polaroid from and no-one around except for us! Eureka!

This river branched into two, so Joe and Matt headed up one branch and John and I the other.

Polaroiding conditions were perfect. However, two to three kilometres into our fishing, we had only spotted two fish, that’s it. We could not work out what was going on, were we blind???

We trekked back and called Joe and Matt. They had experienced the same thing on their branch, but they then decided to drop back to the main river and within half an hour, had caught several thumpers!

We concluded that pretty much all the fish had exited the higher reaches of this river, which was low and exposed and had possibly warmed up too much during the dry conditions, and had migrated to the broader, deeper and more canopied lower reaches.

Chafing at the bit we hit the water and fished to trout happily rising to our dry flies. We had a ball. What a relief that Joe and Matt had the foresight and local knowledge to solve the puzzle.

Bone fishing

Later that afternoon, Joe asked if I would be interested in some ‘bone fishing.’ What?

We headed to a nearby lake with a few shorelines of shallow silty flats. The water was not more than knee deep, with the promise of big browns cruising just a few rod lengths out.

The sun wasn’t playing ball so polaroiding was challenging but we (or mostly Joe) were able to somehow pick those faint smudges, that almost imperceptible movement, that nervous water. We had great fun casting to these fish. The water was so shallow, and the fish were so keyed into terrestrials, that they would hear the fly drop even if cast behind them, or at their tail (oops), turn around, and destroy it. To see the trout take off once hooked, leaving puffs of silt behind, was New Zealand bone fishing indeed!

The cherry on top

The last few days we spent polaroiding and casting to trout on a willow-lined tannin-stained river.

Both mornings started slowly, but as the sun warmed up, the river mayfly started to flutter and almost simultaneously, willow grubs began to drop. The rises were minute, the displacement of water almost imperceptible – and the trout were in difficult spots to cast to.

The fishing was nothing short of spectacular, highly technical, and unforgettable.

We cast small willow grubs and tiny size 18 mayfly imitations, often at very close range. The trout were intent on feeding and to our delight divested themselves of all inhibition. Often, we were even able to drop back several metres where we had just caught one, to find a ‘new’ rising trout.

We finished off our session on the last day with smiles from ear to ear. The difficult start to the trip was all but forgotten, and plans for the next trip were already in the making.

My thanks to my buddy John for making the long trip to fish with me, and my gratitude to Joe and Matt (absolute gun fishers) for their friendship and hospitality.

No goodbyes, but rather, as they say in Rome, arrivederci! (See you again soon.)