Manic Monday - Plan B

With the weather putting a stop to our planned and long-awaited backing country fishing trip, Manic mates, Karl Sawyer, Taranaki Hunting & Fishing Fly Guru Tarn Mack-McEwen and myself, decided to leave the heavy tramping packs behind and opted to tow the boats over to Lake O instead. The weather was not kind at all with cold temps and squally showers persistent throughout each day. This did not stop us though as we all had our Simms Gore-Tex jackets and waders which did a great job of keeping us dry and comfortable out on the water.

It appeared the cooler temps were having an effect on the insect activity and as a result we saw very little surface activity from fishing feeding over the two days. Fishing was pretty tough on both days and being blown around and rained on with little result made us wondering why we were out there however persistence paid off in the end, which is often the case, and we all landed some nice fish over the two days of angling.

Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures of Karl this November as we had to separate with the two boats and sadly he hasn’t gone Movember this year so they would only be half as good anyway. Karl did very well in the shallows stripping the new Manic Fly Collection Damsel Bugger. Tarn out-fished me again nymphing on the drift with the Manic Fly Collection Robs Redhead Bloodworm. I had success nymphing with stripping the Brown & Peacock Little Bugger in the shallows.

Damsel Bugger

Rob's Redhead Bloodworm

Little Bugger Brown & Peacock

Well, it wasn’t the backcountry river experience we had hoped for but what a great plan b option to have at our disposal and made possible with the right quality gear and equipment to make life easy and keep you comfortable in the elements. I think I can speak for all of us here when I say we’re looking forward to the next session already.