Fishing in New Zealand

Can anyone tell me about fly fishing in New Zealand? I would like to find some small streams and would like to do it myself without a guide if possible. We are going on the Auckland to Sydney Princess Cruise departing Jan 20, 2006 and then doing a cruise tour in Australia and then flying back to New Zealand for several days before returning home.

Can anyone tell me about fly fishing in New Zealand? I would like to find some small streams and would like to do it myself without a guide if possible. We are going on the Auckland to Sydney Princess Cruise departing Jan 20, 2006 and then doing a cruise tour in Australia and then flying back to New Zealand for several days before returning home.

Hi Jim,

Yes its very possible to do it yourself, though a little bit of local knowledge is always useful. You will need a licence for trout fishing in NZ, if you tel me where you will be i can get you the info on where to obatin the licence and how much etc. We probably have the best Trout fishing in the world here [and i am not a fisherman, just to eat them]. There are some great accommodation options where you can stay at fishing lodges or just B&B's where the iwner is a local fishing expert. Again if you tell us where you would like to fish we will make some enquiries for you or just give you the links direct. I understand that fly fishing rivers is the true way to fish, other options of trolling from a boat on the lakes will probably be more easily succesful but not in the true spririt of man against nature. When you say [we] is your partner also looking to fish or would they [she] be interested in other activities. Looking forward to being able to help.

Thanks KiwiIan for the prompt reply,

My wife and I will be together. I am the fisherman, she enjoys the scenery and is a addicted quilter, so she can usually find a quilt shop or something while I am fishing. We live in Utah and have a lot of good fishing near here too. Here in our area we have some very famous trout fishing not too far from us, towards the Yellowstone - Grand Teton areas. But I have found that there are a lot of smaller less famous streams nearby that, if you know where they are, are a lot less crowded. The fish might not be as big but the experience is much better than fighting crowds of people. We will probably look for something similar in New Zealand.

Our trip is still several months away so we have time to do some planning. I posted the request to get a general idea of whether it is realistic to do it myself or whether to plan on using a guide.

We appreciate your offer to help and we will be in touch.

Jim

Thanks KiwiIan for the prompt reply,

 

My wife and I will be together. I am the fisherman, she enjoys the scenery and is a addicted quilter, so she can usually find a quilt shop or something while I am fishing. We live in Utah and have a lot of good fishing near here too. Here in our area we have some very famous trout fishing not too far from us, towards the Yellowstone - Grand Teton areas. But I have found that there are a lot of smaller less famous streams nearby that, if you know where they are, are a lot less crowded. The fish might not be as big but the experience is much better than fighting crowds of people. We will probably look for something similar in New Zealand.

Our trip is still several months away so we have time to do some planning. I posted the request to get a general idea of whether it is realistic to do it myself or whether to plan on using a guide.

We appreciate your offer to help and we will be in touch.

Jim

Hi Jim, One thing you will not have to worry about is crowds, even on the best stretches of river. With just a few million of us [4 at the last census] and heaps of space its pretty easy to find solitude. The hardest thing for you to arrange is getting to the river locations. Are you intending on hiring a car and self driving. alternative would be to try and get a tour operator to pick you up, drop off at suitable location and then return for you later. maybe your wife would like to go off and do the sights [in fact my wife and i were yesterday in a small town not farm from here [TeAroha] where there is a quilting gallery, plus a great gallery with silf and felt clothing and art. The stuff was amazing, the sort of thing you would hang in a gallery.

The problem with trying to get a transfer organised that if the ship is large then many of the private operators are booke up or want to go with larger groups [more $] so it would be best to tray and organise in advance.

We take people to Rotorua lake for fishing and they have a great time, sure we could find some nice private streams as well.

Let us know if we can be of assistance.

Hi Ian,

Sorry that it took a while to get back to you. We appreciate your reply. We have 5 days to spend in New Zealand after our cruise and cruise tour Feb 7th to Feb 11th next year. We will probably rent a car for those few days. Our flight is out of Auckland, but we are thinking of flying from Sydney to the south island and then make our way north and end up in Auckland. We have several months to plan what we will do.

Do you have an email address that I can contact you directly thru? You can contact me at jim@mvengr.net.

Thanks for all of your help!