Monthly Highlights
Below are photos and a story from the recent month's guided fly fishing trips in New Zealand's Central South Island.
January 2026
Jacques shouted himself 3 days of fly fishing in the Twizel area while waiting for his family to arrive from France for their NZ holiday.
It's always great to experience the joy that fly fishing can bring especially when your client doesn't get much of an opportunity to fish back home. So it was for Jacques, a thoroughly likeable Frenchman who was just happy to be out on the water.
I've always found that success comes to the most laid back anglers. Some folk tend to get tense after a fly stuck in a tree, a missed strike or a fish break off, but none of these things upset Jacques! In an ideal world there would be no overhanging branches, no wind and always very hungry trout! This can happen, but not that often .....
We used a variety of techniques including across the current downstream mends which resulted in the best fish of the 3 days. This is a great tactic when it's difficult to access the opposite bank or when overhanging vegetation makes an upstream cast impossible.
Jacques with a beaut brown trout.
Fast water rainbow.
Another one bites the dust
Vegetation made catching this trout far from easy but no problem for Jacques!
Not a monster but what a setting!
Alan's go-to emerger
[click image to enlarge]
