Kurow Fly Fishing

Thursday we took the TranzAlpine train back to Christchurch, got into our car, and drove about 3 hours southwest to Kurow. There isn't much in Kurow, but there is good fly fishing, which is the reason for our visit. Friday morning we woke up to head out fishing for the day and unfortunately the weather was bad.

The weather didn't stop us; we went anyway. It wasn't raining super hard, but there was a constant thick mist and it was cold. We drove to several spots on the Hakataramea River dressed from head to toe in rain gear. We fished many pools and sections of the river, where we saw lots of big trout. Dave caught 3 teeny tiny rainbow trout, lost one good size rainbow, and broke off another big one. We spent the whole day out, but went home defeated at the end of the day. Saturday we awoke to sunshine and blue skies. We went back to one of the spots we had fished on Friday, to try again. Jill was armed with the GoPro video camera, our small camera, and the Nikon with our biggest lens. If anything happened, there is no way we could miss it. Dave caught a 4 1/2 pound rainbow on a dry mayfly after only ten minutes of fishing. It was a good 10 minute fight that we did get on video. We took some pictures and released the fish. We stayed for about 30 more minutes and then left the spot with the redemption we were seeking.