Day 4 - The Mangahao

Today's adventure involved a couple of hours of afternoon fishing on a tributary of the Manawatu, the Mangahao River. It's just over the hill from Massey and a short drive from our house on Ruahine. It's a great little river, with very deep pools and not much current. With the wind raging today (reports of a full gale in Wellington), the upstream dead-drift nymphing strategy was difficult. So all the tricks in my fly box are starting to come out. Yesterday, an old red-colored friend from New Mexico (those who fish with me know this fly) received lots of attention from trout along the clay banks of the Rangatikei. Today another North American joined the game. Following a visit and some encouragement from my friend Greig this morning, I tied on the wooly bugger for the first time in months. Although I was tempted to throw a size 4 JJ, I followed Greig's advice and used a smaller dark olive size 8. It produced one big fatty just before dark.

Winter is near, but what an awesome place it is to be here fishing in the Southern Hemisphere!

BTW - I've started a fund-raiser for my feat of fishing endurance. Please consider joining by making a donation:
http://tinyurl.com/pf435hr