Fly Fishing a Favourite River, Backcountry, South Island, New Zealand, November 2025

I head back to one of my favourite places to fish. It's a combination of the isolation, the mountains the water quality and of course the fish. It was a big day on my feet - 26k steps over about 10hrs but I always get back to the car super happy and satisfied. The hiking itself to get to the good fishing area is around 2.5hrs from the vehicle - or if you're wealthy enough about 2 min in the helicopter! This isolation though I think helps to protect this particular area from over fishing - if you want to fish it you've either got to pay big $$ for the chopper or accept that you're going to do at least 5-6hrs hiking for the day just to get to the area then return to the car. A chopper flew downstream at low level around 11am when I was getting close to the best fishing area, possible picking up guided tourists who I know frequent this particular valley (I ran into them on my last trip there last year). So the fishing was tough going for a few hours after that but then late in the afternoon it improved as the fish started to settle back down. It really is a magic valley (in my opinion) so even if the fishing is tough going, the scenery makes up for it - catching fish on top of that is just a bonus.