Dan and I had a busy weekend. Let's start with Sunday, 21 February 2021. We started around mid day on the Rangitaiki River above Lake Matahina. The intention was to knock off a few more dry fly patterns.
It was hot and the sun was full on. It was also windy, straight out of the north.
Dan did not start out well. His Parachute Adams found a tree and was lost. His casts were not finding their mark. We were seeing a lot of fish rising, and, as you know, you need to be pretty quick and accurate when trout are cruising and feeding on the surface.. We moved on to an Adams Irresistible. After a lot of work, he hooked up and landed his best rainbow of the season.
We moved down to the top of the lake and the northerly was howling and the sun was brutal. There was very little chance of spotting the telltale rings on the surface. I am just not a big fan of casting a dry fly randomly, unless, of course, it is a big, cheeseburger-sized cicada. The big splash can attract a trout from many metres away. We put on a bead head krystal olive woolly bugger and let the wind push us back up river. This is a pattern we use on the lake edge and it never lets us down.
It took a while but Dan pulled a nice brown from a shaded spot.
As we continued back up towards the bridge early evening, the wind calmed down a bit. The next pattern was an Adams dry fly. It took a bit of effort but Dan caught his next fish. The trout were rising freely in the foam lines.
Both the Dad's favourite and black gnat dry flies found their targets but Dan did not let them run; they both broke off. Did I tell you we were using five pound monofilament as the tippet? In the deeper, open water it should not have been a problem. For some reason we were having a lot of trouble.
Dan was struggling so I took his rod from him and put on a size 16 parachute Adams. It took me quite a few casts to get it right but I caught a nice rainbow.
We tried a couple of other patterns but it was just not working out.
Then I remembered Dan had only ever caught a fly on a dry fly a year before. He had previously mastered edge fishing with a woolly bugger and had two successful sessions nymphing this season. Those were both with his six/seven weight rod and a floating line that must be seven weight.
Now I remember he used my Sage last year dry fly fishing. I did not think about any of that until I used his rod. I cast it poorly and now I understand.
Sorry bro, now I know why you were so terrible. We still managed to land quite a few fish.
The day before Dan was a super star. We were on the sea at the mussel farm near Opotiki. Dan landed the best snapper of the day then an 80 cm king fish near the mussel ropes. Now I realise he must be doing many things right.
