Thread: Catch Any Trout Today?

Had my first back country fly trip for the season last weekend. Had a week off in between finishing a job & starting my new job so wanted to get at least a few days away with some time to get a few things done around the house. I’m in Porirua & one of my best fly mates is in Tauranga so we decided to meet in the middle & head in somewhere. After driving for about 4.5hrs I pulled up at our designated meet up spot to find he’d arrived only seconds earlier.

Loaded gear & headed in. A uphill climb to start & then a big ass drop (about 800m elevation) down into the intended river valley. I’d have got to the river in maybe 2hrs from the car but due to my mate awaiting ACL surgery & sporting a knee brace it took us about 4hrs, but we weren’t in a hurry. Get down to be greeted by some lovely clear water. Mate set up his rod & immediately hooks a lovely conditioned 6lb rainbow. Another hour across the river & we got up to the 101 year old hut we were staying in for dinner, a couple beers & a wee whisky. Following morning we walked back down the 45mins to the river. I hooked up second cast, followed quickly by my buddy. End of the day we ended up catching & releasing 7 more rainbows, varying from about 1-1.5lb to 6lb. All in great condition. Monday we had a lazy sleep-in & fried brekky to start the day & then slowly headed back out. A little over 5hrs back to the car. Mate was much better with the big uphill back to the car but still a bit slow going. Bloody good trip though & great to catch up with such a good old mate. I carted the Baikal .270 along too in case we bumped into any animals but we never actually hunted at all. Did a little glassing of some slips while my mate was casting pools but only animal I saw was a single sheep way up high on a slip.