A shorter day mission to a high country stream was on the cards as the weather and time limitations of the day dictated we choose this location to fish. An early start put us on the river by 8:30am and after setting up the rods we ventured upstream in search of our quarry, some big high country browns.
The sunlight was variable and made spotting hard but taking our time stalking upstream, we finally spotted a nice cruising brown of between 5-6 pounds fining in the shallows in search of nymphs or bullies. I couldn’t resist presenting him with a small dry. The cast was good, 1m in front and just to the side and he slowly cruised over to inspect the fly. I’m sure my heart skipped a beat as he slowly declined the offering and continued to cruise upstream. Moving upstream a little further we found an actively feeding fish at the top of the run. It looked to be of a good size and several casts later we were happy to see him swing to the right and nail my friend’s nymph, causing the indicator to dip and his rod to bend over after the strike hooked up successfully. A mediocre fight revealed a not so great conditioned brown of 7 1/4 pounds. The fish was of a good length but lacked condition this early in the season.

A few pools later we found another feeding fish which from its length appeared to be a potential trophy (over 10lb) trout. Good commentary from my friend on the far bank guided me to place a good cast and get a natural drift to the big brown. I had chosen to fish a small size 14 CDC emerger indicator fly with a natural size 14 pheasant tail variation as a dropper, keeping things small and natural to avoid upsetting the trout. For a few seconds everything slowed down as my friend informed me that the fish was approaching my fly, having appeared to have seen it. The next thing a big head emerged from the water and inhailed the CDC emerger. A brief pause followed by a firm strike had me hooked up. The fight started out intense but soon downgraded as the fish tired and I realised that the fish, although large, lacked the condition to be a trophy fish. A brief fight had the fish ready to net and a quick weigh with the scales revealed a satisfying 7.5lbs of brown trout glistening in the net. A quick photo was followed by a quick release, sending him on his merry way. Once again the fish’s condition was a little disappointing and thoughts of the potential size of the landed fish later in the season was enough to make us contemplate coming back at a later date.
Alas time was not on our side on this day as we had to get back home a lot earlier than usual, and had a big trip ahead of us. It’s always hard to head home when there is still so much potential fishing available but at least we had had some success and in a few months when the fish have had the opportunity to put on some condition we will have to plan another trip back to tackle these potential monsters. Looking forward to it already! Stay tuned to a blog later in the season.