What Harry has been getting up to

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports, Folks I know — Leave a comment

February 28, 2014

If you cast an eye over this blog from time to time you may remember a guy Called Harry Abbott. Harry lives here in Spain and we meet up from time to time to go fishing together. He is not only an accomplished fly fisherman, but a fellow float tuber, a bird watcher and wildlife enthusiast. He is also great fun and his après pêche “raconteuring” over a beer or two always winds up a day´s fishing perfectly.

For the last few years he has been setting off on fishing adventures in Thailand and New Zealand and sends me back pictures and updates from his travels. I try extremely hard to contain my jealousy!

You may have already seen the beautiful Arapaima he caught in Thailand. If not, I have attached a photograph below. These huge fish are native to South America although fishing pressure prevents most from attaining the enormous sizes they are capable of growing to. Harry´s fish took a fly and gave him a hell of a scrap.

Harry´s most recent report was sent from New Zealand where he was fishing the upper Taieri River. This is a river I have never fished myself but it looks great. At a length of 200km this is New Zealand´s fourth longest river and runs through Otago in the South Island.

Here is an except from an email Harry sent me a couple of weeks ago in which he described some of his catches….

“Two at just over 3.5 lbs, one at 4 lbs and one at 2 lbs …..all wild brown trout of course caught on pheasant tail nymph fished to nymphing fish. Missed another much bigger fish by striking before the fish turned away….I saw it crossing the current to take the nymph ..I saw the fish in clear water in every detail slowly opening its jaws to take in the nymph ..a very large cock fish maybe in the 6 or 7 lbs range….ughh missed it!
Tried a lake in the morning as the cicadas were hatching from the tussock grass and blowing on to the water but the fish had so much choice and were so stuffed that they were impossible to tempt to our imitation cicadas….even the seagulls were stuffed and resting quietly out in the middle.
Really needed to get there a few days ago before they became satiated….I am told it is amazing fishing when the cicadas first appear and I can well believe it.”

I know that the cicada fishing can be exceptional around this time of the year. I asked David-Murray Orr to tie me up some flies and he included a lovely deer hair cicada pattern. David guides on the Mataura and other South Island rivers and ties lovely flies. If you want to see his web site and blog you can reach it by clicking on this link: http://www.mataura.co.nz/

The cicada pattern was photographed by Jackie Benstead, who has become Fishydreams´ in-house photographer. Her lovely images are also shown below.