Back From NZ

I've been home now for a few days and already looking forward to my next trip which is with my dad to Chile. But before I look forward, I should reflect a bit on a great 2 weeks in New Zealand. That said, it's also nice to be home, I missed my wife and kids a ton this past trip. The shop has also been staying busy and running smoothly, so I guess that's pretty fantastic.

We spent a couple weeks near Te Anau on the South Island, fishing for bows and browns around the region. The area is great in that there is ample access to more water than you could fish in several years. We tromped all over the place, hitting the favorites such as the Oreti, Mararoa, Hamilton Burn plus a lot of new ones for me including the Wairaki, Whitestone and Lake Monowai. I did some exporing as well and crossed the extreme Upper Aparima and Lil Burn off my list of places I need to go back to!

The fishing is always good in NZ, but the catching can be tough at times. It's hard to wait long enough on that hookset so somedays you end up with just a couple fish out of a dozen chances. The weather was crappy more days than not this year, but we still managed to find some productive places for sightfishing in poor light.

I think everyone got a fish of 6 pounds or better. I landed 3 between 7 and 7.5 and one of 8.5 pounds. Jones once again came out with the biggest, just shy of 10 pounds. He did catch that one while blind fishing so I still get some satisfaction in catching the biggest fish that was actually spotted first! ANytime you can catch trout that average around 4 pounds on dry flies, you shouldn't complaign...I know that I'm not.

I'm already looking forward to next year's adventure.

Winding Up

The past weekend was a little crazy as the wif was out of town and I got to play Mr. Mom for a few days. Although I really enjoy spending some time with my little one, Matty, it's much more fun when Mom is home too! Kids are a lot of work, unlike dogs, you can't put them out when they're driving you crazy. I guess in the end though, it's more fun than not.

I leave for NZ this coming Friday...finally. So, this week involves wrapping up some loose ends around the shop and getting everything together.

Fly tying has become more prominent in my activities over the last few months for a couple of reasons. One, Rick is driving shuttles this winter instead of working in the shop, so I've been getting everyone together for our Saturday Tying Seminars and teaching the intro tying class. Two, tying bugs fro NZ. I actually enjoy tying quite a bit, it's relaxing and a way for me to express my "creative" side without actually thinking about it like that.

One of the coolest things that I've come across lately is using Flexi-Floss for bodies. I've been using this materials for years on midges and legs on stonefly nymphs, but I started using it on dries too and think the results are great. It gives you a nice, clean body in billions of colors and is very durable. I've been using a light and dark color wrapped together to get a segmented look. This is an easy way to get a more realistic look to just about anything and they look yummy.