Coming from Kaua'i, Hawai'i

[evbouret]

Hey everyone, I'll be visiting the North Island of Aotearoa for most of the month of May. Looking to get into some decent streams up near Bay of Plenty/Eastland/Hawkes Bay/Rotorua are. I am an avid fisherman and backcountry hunter here in Hawai'i. Our land based game and terrain is very similar to what you guys hunt in over there. I mainly chase pigs but we also have blacktail deer and goats to hunt. I have been fishing heavily for about 15 years and consider myself a capable offshore/inshore saltwater fisherman, kayak fisherman and freshwater bass fisherman. My fly fishing skills are somewhat limited but I understand the basics (I think ). I visited your country in 2007 or so for about two monthes and did a lot of fishing and surfing. Caught a few decent fish on nymphs, and a lot of small ones on a variety of dries.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips on equipment I'll need, flies I should bring? Any rivers I should check out with a decent population of trout and not too crowded? I'm honestly looking to get away from people and am not scared to hike a few miles to get there. I am bush wise and will not wander into my death. I can understand if you guys are skeptical of putting names or locations on here. PM me if you want to have a chat.

Aloha from Hawai'i and I look forward to sneaking around the NZ streams!

(I tried to attach some pics….no luck)

[Johnno]

You are really going to be restricted to the lakes and rivers of Taupo and Rotorua Lakes areas. The main season ends at the end of April and that'll put the kibosh on the streams of the BoP, Hawkes Bay East Coast etc. what fishing you'll have wont be exactly wilderness fishing.....

[evbouret]

I was under the inpression most of the rivers were open until June? Looking at the NZ fishing info website they have most of the east rivers listed as open until then. Thanks for the reply!

[evbouret]

Is the info on here wrong? Looks like theres a fair ammount of water to fish. You guys would definitely know better than I.

http://www.nzfishing.com/Regulations/Re ... astern.htm

[Johnno]

Oh yeh. That's around the Rotorua area. A lot of that water is the local streams and rivers flowing into or close to the Rotorua lakes or thereabouts. Some nice fishing in that lot including the lakes, margins and stream mouths. Been 16 years since I been to a lot of those places so can't really coment further other than it'll be mostly streamer fishing. the Ruakituri and Motu would be your best bets for the type of fishing you looking for.

[evbouret]

Thanks Johnno!

[Whio]

There's plenty of options in your desired locations. While the upper reaches may be closed on some of the rivers and streams there's plenty of good fishing to be had in the lower reaches. We've just had some heavy rain so most everything is blown out at the moment. A week or so of settled weather should change that. The bonus is that most of the weed will be cleaned out of rivers like the Tukituki. Otherwise the Taupo area has some good options.