Well it came that time of the week, saturday knock to go pack the bags and head up into the northen islands mountain ranges and get back to some time away
Fished a different area today (not telling, sorry i know there are some kiwis on here), far off from taupo, and being back water country. Which generally means non spawning fish, of fish mooving up the river to start spawning, which means BIGGER FISH!

Met up with my friend/guide at around 830 and we got off the main roads, and started heading into rural farm land. A quick chat and discussion on the plan of the day, while telling me hes sorted me a rod worth 1000 NZ for basically half the price, due to him being a guide and getting heavily discounted. It was a sabre 6 wt rod, and aKilwell genesis 2 with shark skin fly line.

Off we went trecking through the farm paddocks and climbing down some ledges to get to our first spot. Again after some discussion with Pete the guide teaching me how to read water, and where i should be casting into.It was first cast, and bang, after a short couple minutes , i had another species ticked off the list being my first brown. Browns fight different rainbows are aerial and generally are clean fighters with acrbatics that put a aussie salmon to shame. Browns on the other hand are all about the snags and the rocks.

I was fighting a nice rainbow of estimated around 5 pounds, for around 5 mintues till he did me in back flipping out of the water to spit the hooks. i was spewing.

It was some what a slow morning, with the wind playing havoc with my inexperienced casting, and missing fish strikes. and it pelting down with rain.We stopped for some lunch talked some more about reading the water and decided to head north along the river looking for likely areas. While mooving along the banks i slipped and went C*** up (down the bank) rolling through sludgey cow and sheep shit and it was so pleasent, luckily my new rod and reel was in good nic still!We found a nice area with some rapids and hard pushing current into a nice slow mooving pool, and two of three casts later, i was onto my biggest rainbow yet, these fish are so amazing the arial acrobatics they do are just amazing. I was determined to get this one in and about 5-10 mins of fun later i had him in the net. Now this fish was in extremely good touch for eating quality, nice and silver. I decided this ones for dinner and will be the only for the day. Fishing the same area, we crossed the rapid to the middle to fish some more currents and again i had another solid rainbow on jumping around while pete also had a smaller fish on. Lost it jumped directly into  rappid and the line went slak. Oh well had some fun, i turned around to look at pete and once again i lost my footing and went into the drink, 8-10 degree water it was cold! luckily i some what landed on a rock and the rappids didnt take me for a swim.

Right now is where this day turns into one my most memorable fishing experiences of my life. We mooved more north to one of his facourite secret pools. Both had a cast and bang we were on, i fished the closer slower current and he went out to the next current, i had my first real solid brown on, him a rainbow jumping every where, he quickly his in and released, to help me with my fish as it was trying to burry me everywhere, i was chasing the fish up and down the bank till finally pete could get out and net him. My first male brown with a massive hook jaw! stoked, apparently where im going next weekend the fish are even bigger!

For the next 2.5 hours we had 14 hooks up with around 8(my inexperince once again) landed and plenty of shit talking inbetween. We ended up taking it turns to fish due to the fact these fish were all between5-7 pounds and we needed the net most times. I got the fish of the day with my last rainbow being a tad over 7 pounds in his net, and was released to fight another day, well in fact all fish from the one area were released. enjoy the photos.....Next week brings on a two day trip, (long weekend) and camping in the mountain up in a secluded cottage which will be awsome...aparently we will be chasing even bigger fish!!!

Till next time lads....Over and Out!

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