Over the weekend my brother and I joined a few friends to fish Lake Otamangakau before it closes. In addition to a few inches of rain over the two days we got stuck into a bunch of great rainbows.

I could have sworn this fish was going to be a brown, caught out of a foot of water. We spotted this fish's bow waves in the shallows ambushed it with a small unweighted seal's fur bugger and to our surprise ended up dragging this big rainbow into the net.

As always it's good to hang out with the bro. And it was great to be driven around for the weekend on his new boat.

Palmy's Greig Cousins boated a stack of big fish as usual including a brown over 7lb's. Here he show's one of the many rainbows taken for the weekend on the line of choice a fast intermediate and either an orange or black beaded woolly bugger.

With the rivers coming into their own now and the lakes closing this was our last chance to tuck into these big rainbows. This fish came out of deeper water by letting the fast intermediate sink a little deeper again with a black bead skinny bugger.

Now after all of that rain it's time to start hitting the Tongariro and other lake Taupo tributaries. Early signs are the fishery is coming back to it's former self with plenty of fish above 2kg to be found.

Queenstown's Chris Dore is running Spey casting and fishing lessons this winter on the Clutha river. What's important to note is if last winter was anything to go by then you can expect to be catching rainbows and browns ranging from 5lb to over double figures. And most importantly you get the chance to learn how to fish a double hander by one of the countries only competent Spey instructors.

Chris is an FFF qualified casting instructor and most importantly an excellent Spey caster, with Single hand, Switch and Two handed fly rods.

This is a great thing to do over winter if your family wants to head to Queenstown to ski or play in the snow then take a day out on the river with Chris and see what the Clutha has to offer whilst learning a few new tricks.

For more information check out www.chrisdore.com

The first issue of our online magazine Fly Fishers Inc is now live. Labelled the Back Country Issue this first issue features a number of great insights into back country fly fishing in New Zealand.

Thanks to all of those who have contributed with content for this first issue. We have a video clip from Carl McNeil of On the Fly, a review of the Scott S4 fly rods from Chris Dore, Flies from Mike Davis and photos by Yoshi from Rod and Reel.

Rob took time from fishing to help us with the creative side of the new magazine.

Most importantly thanks to my brother Rob for his help with the logo design, and my wife Susan for the great page layouts, proofing my rubbish spelling and simply making it happen because it wasn't going to without her.

Thanks to Susan for making it all happen.

Fly Fishers Inc will be published four times a year. The next issue will be out September 1st 2010, followed by December 1st 2010, March 1st 2011 and then June 1st 2011.

Please make sure you subscribe and use the pop up at the bottom of the page to send to as many friends as you think would be interested.

if you haven't found it yet, then go to www.flyfishersinc.com to view the magazine.