Fly Fishing Turnbull River in Haast

2.20

We slept in a motel in Haast after heli fishing and woke up to meet Jeff at a cafe for breakfast next to our accommodation. After, we set off to fish the Turnbull River not far from town. The sun was out and it was a gorgeous summer morning. Jeff spotted some fish pretty early on, but they were in quite difficult lies.  We were really hoping to find some fish for Monica to cast to, but every opportunity kept proving to require advanced skill. Out of about 4 fish spotted that morning, Cameron was able to produce good presentations to half of them, but those fish were stubborn and refused to eat.

One fish actually did come up and eat the dry fly but either missed the fly or the fly slipped through it’s giant jaws and did not connect.  Cameron was crawling on his belly to get into position and made a wonderful presentation. This stroke of poor luck was rather heartbreaking.  Monica was spared the grief as she was napping in some sunshine at the time. ;)

It was all recorded on the GoPro on Cameron’s head.  The play by play will be reviewed and dissected in the near future.

The narrative of the day continued to be that of fickle fish and unfortunate luck.  It was just one of those days, and not a single fish was caught.  Around lunch time the clouds and wind rolled in and sight fishing was essentially nixed.  

Even though there was no catching of fish, once again, the countryside was simply magnificent.  We hiked through tall grass, sheep and cattle, and watched the thick clouds hug the mountain tops in the distance. Photos are below.

Special thank you to: Jason C., Kyle, Thom, Marnae, Liz, Rob, Denise, Sean, Nate, Erin, Janet and Tom for our fly fishing day!

Once the day ended, we headed to an AirBnB in Wanaka to spend the night.  We stayed in a room in a very nice Kiwi's (Pablo) house.  We spent the night drinking wine and having great conversation with him in his kitchen.

Special thank you to: Kim, Raine, Max, Stelios, Kelley, Megan, Kyle and Amber for our Wanaka AirBnB accommodation!