An Amazing Place to Fly Fish

Wednesday we drove to Queenstown, which was only a couple hours west. We had a beautiful drive around Lake Wakatipu between the mountains and into Queenstown. On Thursday Jan 5th, we went fly fishing with Jeff Jones. We left right out of Queenstown on his boat to get to a secluded fishing spot. The boat sheds are really interesting here. The boat is stored in a garage like shed right on the lake edge. The boat sits on a trailer with rail wheels which is on a train track. The boat is then slowly wheeled down the rails and into the lake using a generator. It's kind of like a coal cart. Once you arrive back, the boat is just driven back onto the trailer and then the cart is pulled into the shed. We thought it was really

clever. So we drove the boat about 30 minutes across the lake to a farmers private property. From the boat we got into an old Range Rover probably from the 70s, and drove up river about 30 more minutes. The property was amazing. It was really secluded from society. The farm was between several 5,000 foot mountains right on the lake with a river running thru it. The only way to the farm was by boat. Even the cattle and sheep were transported by boat. There were so many huge pastures with grazing merino, cows with their spring babies nursing, bulky bulls ready to charge, and lots of trout waiting to be caught. It would be heaven for Jill's mom! We took the Range Rover through the pastures, up really steep hills, and even crossed

the river. It was like we were on a 4x4 safari. Once we got up the Lochy river far from any human we started to fish the river by spotting trout and working upstream. Dave had a great time with the challenge of casting in the perfect spot to intice the trout to take the fly. He caught 9 fish and lost 1. Jill fished a bit in the beginning, but she was having such a good time helping Jeff (the guide) spot fish and enjoying the wilderness, that she stopped after a short time. It was such a beautiful place to spend the day. We wished we could have camped out for a few days and enjoyed the mountains and forest. The only complaint we had was the sand flies. They were awful to say the least. We were mostly covered in clothes from head to toe, but

the few bits of skin that were exposed were in danger. We loaded on the repellant so we didn't get to many bites, but they were just plain annoying flying in and around your eyes and face. It was such an amazing place that we dealt with the sand flies and didn't complain a bit. After fishing the day away, we drove back thru the forest, over the river, and to the lake. Then we got on the boat and drove back across the lake. We really had a great day. Even though Dave had a few challenges, it was one of the best days we have had in New Zealand.