An invitation to fish a location that had just opened to fishing with a friend who I hadn’t yet fished with this season was hastily accepted. This location held the potential for some good brown trout fishing in some pleasant high country tussock scenery. I hadn’t fished this river for almost 2 years as a large flood had deterred me from fishing it the previous season. A 5am pickup had us geared up and starting to walk up the river by 8:30am. The day was overcast and cool as the tail end of a southeasterly front remained in the vicinity. Upon reaching the section of the river we planned to fish, we immediately spotted a good trout feeding actively in a pool. The spotting was hard and the recirculating eddy the fish cruised about in was a difficult spot to get a good drift. My friend was first up and did a good job presenting his nymph to the fish, but unfortunately the fish wasn’t playing ball and eventually disappeared. A short walk up to the next pool and we stumbled onto another happily feeding fish. It was my turn and a change of rig was quickly made before casting to the fish. The fly (a size 14 glister variant) landed a little shorter than expected, but after only a short drift the fish immediately turned and nailed the fly. I tried hard to keep the fish in the pool but he was keen to head downstream underneath a fence that lay across the river. As you would expect he went straight under it. I tried to bring him back upstream but he wasn’t so keen on my plan, so I eventually had to pass my rod under the fence to my friend waiting just downstream. The team effort led to the netting of a nice conditioned brown of approximately 6.5lbs. A good start to the day! Further up the pool my friend managed to extract a beautifully spotted 3lber which was so beautiful that it deserved to be the subject of a quick photo. A few pools later and another fish was located actively nymphing next to a submerged willow branch. My friend crossed and proceeded to present his nymph to the fish. The first good drift was taken, but the fly didn’t stick and the fish bolted into cover. We had had a great start finding feeding fish in most decent sections of water, and we had now only travelled less than 1km upstream. The day continued to play out in a similar way, however there were longer and longer stretches of good looking water which lay devoid of fish. The overcast conditions were I’m sure responsible for the odd missed fish, but it appeared that the fish distribution was more and more spread out the further we travelled upstream. Despite the lower trout densities we were having an enjoyable day, with the occasional landed and lost fish keeping us entertained as we proceeded upstream. We experimented with dries and nymphs but most fish were focusing on the subsurface flies. As the day drew to an end our minds started to focus on the longish 1.5-2 hour walk back to the truck, and just as we started to pack up our gear we heard the familiar sound of a vehicle driving towards us on a nearby road. A quick scramble up a Matagouri clad hill and we waved down the farm truck. After a brief conversation with the driver, he kindly offered us a ride back downstream. We gladly accepted. Man how lucky was that! Within 15-20minutes we were back at the truck pondering what we would do with all the newly found spare time that we now had up our sleeves due to our quick trip back. I think my friend was thinking about more beer drinking time with his buddies while I was contemplating being home in time to see my two sons before they went to bed. The smooth trip home had us discussing the next possible fishing trip together. Looking forward to it already!