So it was Blair's birthday celebration. He wanted three full days of hunting and fishing before he started his recovery period the following week. We started in the middle of the night at Matahina. We used thermal imaging technology along pretty-much all of the lake. There was not a hot sausage to be seen. Just before first light, I put him ashore for a stalk. I sat in a likely place for a deer to show up then went for a walk. I saw some fresh stag sign and could smell it too. We basically wasted a lot of time as there are few deer to be had here. But we have been chasing deer here for 20 years and thought we would have a go.
The real reason we were here was to have a fish afterwards...
Blair decided I should go first. I put on a cone head brown woolly bugger. I think it took four minutes before I was into a good brown. I will try to get some video footage but I am so far behind that it is silly to try. If more people watched our You Tube videos, I would make more.
Blair was up next with a cone head krystal brown woolly bugger. I really like these cone head woolly buggers. They are a challenge to cast with the extra weight but they have some good vertical action. We have already witnessed rookies catching trout with them.
I was next with a short shank black ghost epoxy eyed jigging smelt. I lost three fish and decided to give Blair a turn in five minutes. Bang, I hooked and landed a good bow.
Blair was next with a bead head olive and black woolly bugger. All of the fish we caught were solid. I was next with a yellow lady short shanked epoxy eyed jigging smelt. I got it on the second cast.
Blair was next with a bead head olive woolly bugger. Then we hit one of the foam lines with rising trout. Remember, a foam line can be just leaves and stuff funneled into a line in the river. Always watch for these. There is always food there for waiting trout. We used a blue blowfly as the top fly with a lace moth then a klinkhammer tied below. The blowfly was taken by the next two fish then each of the trailers caught one. Yeah, we had a few challenging moments but we caught a good number of fat trout.
It was already a long day. We went back home and prepped four fat trout for the smoker and Thai fish cakes. Then we went for an evening hunt and got three fallow deer. The next night we went out again...
