Hi,

With the new baby (now just over 8 months) there's not been much time to get out for fishing weekends. However, this year Anzac Day (Australian New Zealand Army Corp; our Rememberance Day) fell on Friday, so that gave us a long weekend. So, my wife and I each took some annual leave on Thursday as well and made a break for it.

We headed down to a farm stay just outside of Tirau. The Waihou Stream flows on this property. The Waihou is a spring fed stream, not very wide, but quite deep in places. The national fishing tournament is held on this water and recently the World's were held here. The beat markers are still in place, though I admit i fished outside the beat a few times. The Waihou is generally known for having a lot of small fish (under 30 cm; or 12 inches). The upper section does have some larger fish which are notoriously spooky and spot you a mile away due to the clarity of the water. It's a great place to practice precise presentations and to get the blood pressure way up there! Decided to give that a miss this time round.

Anyway, Thursday eve I tried a few dries. Took two, one on a Purple Jessie (purple floss body, silver rib, black hackle and black tail, mottle Turkey wings) and the other on a small Red Quill (but the body was two strands of dyed deer hair wrapped for the body).

After that switched to soft hackles. They worked a treat, and I think I ended up with about 10 by the time I finished up. Next morning, soft hackles were still working well. Then, things dried up. I switched to a Parmachene Belle Bucktail (size 14) and a Teal Blue and Silver (size 12), and that did the trick. Once evening came around, a Mallard and Claret (size 10) was the ticket.

Over the course of the weekend, I caught fish on dries, soft hackles, winged wets (Royal Coachman), palmered wets (bibio), palmered winged wets (a brown Invicta), and two on nymphs (the last, and one of the largest fish at about 11 inches, was on Jax's Suicide Nymph, which was a fly of the week just a short while ago).

Looking back at my diary, I caught 30 trout. All small, all released, and all good fun.

- Jeff