Mike Kirkpatricks AMAZING Opening Week

We made the mistake of asking Mike if he could give us a quick couple of words and photos of his opening week as we'd seen a few really good fish pics floating around. What turned up has thrown us into a downward spiral of depression. We're happy for you Mike, we really are...oh well, back to work for us.

"Success comes second place for me these days to the adventure of my opening trip, and this opening was no different. A big mission in was planned on with a regular client Kresten from Denmark, with the difference being we’d be fishing together as a thank you for years of his business. It was all we’d hoped for in terms of effort and experience, and to ice the cake nicely, got a bunch of nice fish with most to the dry. Late on opening day I scored a fish heading into the 4kg area which made for a happy walk back. After a few days rest (after over 70kms of walking over 3 days) it was into guiding my Danish friend and we found a spot in some fairly poor weather. After the conditions improved we had the misfortune of following some guys who shot up the valley early ahead of us. Boo. It wasn’t intended, but made for some tricky fishing for us and using some common sense and fishing side channels and edges on the opposite side of obvious boot prints gave us a fair result of 6 to the bank and as many missed with mistimed strikes or pulled hooks. We stayed an extra day to take advantage of overnight rain that swelled the river and turned the color from clear to coffee. To explain, this sort of resets things from days of pressure and as Kresten had not experienced this type of fishing (in very dirty water) I was keen to show him the potential. After waiting until 1pm to get out of the hut and into it, we found some inside bend edges and feeding ‘smudges’. Big creeper patterns were employed and instant success enjoyed as the browns hit these big flies with reckless abandon. We brought four great fish to the bank in quick time and had a beaming Dane, having experienced sight fishing in highly discolored water. A gap in my schedule allowed me to get out for a day with good mate Anton and we picked up 9 fish from a larger river up to 6lbs. Overall, the first two weeks have been a mix of intense effort and easy going with generally good results. We’ve had all conditions and a good number of nice browns to the net. Bring on the rest of what is shaping up as a good season indeed."