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Dinky Jr
03-10-2013, 02:17 PM
Hi all,
Long time lurker, first time poster here. I'm headed to New Zealand for 3 weeks (end April-early May) with my ladyfriend, and was looking for any info/advice from others who have been/fished there. We are going to be bumming around the South Island in a camper van, and while she is not a fisherman (I'm working on that) and the main goal of the trip is hiking/camping I figure there will be some time for fishing around campsites, etc... Any advice on public access rules, what kind of gear I should bring, good info sources/guides, etc...? We'll be there at (from what I can gather) is the end of their season, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. Thanks in advance.

- Carl

mflyfish
03-30-2013, 05:49 PM
Hi all,
Long time lurker, first time poster here. I'm headed to New Zealand for 3 weeks (end April-early May) with my ladyfriend, and was looking for any info/advice from others who have been/fished there. We are going to be bumming around the South Island in a camper van, and while she is not a fisherman (I'm working on that) and the main goal of the trip is hiking/camping I figure there will be some time for fishng around campsites, etc... Any advice on public access rules, what kind of gear I should bring, good info sources/guides, etc...? We'll be there at (from what I can gather) is the end of their season, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. Thanks in advance.

- Carl

We have been going for years to New Zealand and you can catch fish on your own there without guides, although you need to be a decent angler. There are a number of info books on the specific waters that you can get off Amazon, and we found them to be pretty accurate. We fish 4 or 5 weights and use flies we use here, princes and adams and such. The fish are big and more spread out, and the dry fly fishing can be tough, as you need to make a good cast and not spook them. It will be fall when you are there and the water is very low this year, they are having a drought, so the bigger rivers will be better and they tend to be more nymph rivers. There are hiking huts you can stay in and if you hike up the rivers, the fishing gets better, like everywhere. There is info on the huts on the NZ fish and game website. The public access is excellent and if you need to cross some farmers land, they always say yes. The farmers will often let you camp on their land by the river. They are ridiculously nice people. There are also private campgrounds and public ones, all cheap and nice. My favorite river on the South Island is the Matuara, which is all the way down at the bottom, but it has more hatches and more quantity of smaller trout, more dry fly fishing. Get a couple of books and do some research, and you will get a few fish if you normally do well here on the Sac or the Yuba or other well-fished water. You will not see many fishermen, if any. The food is pretty bad in the countryside, but other than that, its a wonderful place. Have a good time
Mark Merrill