Small streams, early season

I have fished one particular stream every year for the last 28 years.

Always in the first month of the new fishing season. I have fished it later on a number of occasions but it never fishes the same as in that first month.

This stream is nothing remarkable, you can jump across it at any point.

It rises in tussock hills and flows through run country pasture in eastern southland

For the greater part it flows over bedrock and has an un- passable water fall about a kilometer up from its confluence .

There are 9 or 10 pools in that kilometer and in a good year all hold trout.

Sometimes they will be in the runs as well.

Most years there will be four or five of those pools holding trout.

I “discovered” it (because in those eager young days of my flyfishing life I would walk up a ditch to see if it held trout!) when as I was preparing to fish a larger stream, a grumpy local angler spotted me and hurried ahead of me and claimed the stream first.

That left me with the option of going somewhere else or fishing up this little side creek as I had traveled a wee way to get there I decided to take a look at this creek.

I must admit, that year ,was a good year and by the time I had reached the water fall, six trout had fallen to my fly and another three had learned that not every insect looking thing floating down was food.

These were not small fish either! All were over three pound with two over the 5lb mark on my weight net.

This ticked all the boxes for me, dry fly, lots of fish, big fish and plenty of action, so it was inevitable that this creek would be etched into my memory.

That is why I return as often as I can.

It is also the reason I look at every small stream and creek with open eyes and open mind and have had some awesome fishing to boot.

So don’t pass up those wee streams everybody else walks or drives past , they might just end up being your  “return to stream”