On The Fly NZ

24/09/2025

An awesome weekend just been and really stoked to get the W on Lake Whakamaru. Always a tough low numbers comp so conversion was important and not much in it in the end.

Shout out to and . Gotta be stoked to share a podium with you. Top shelf 📚

04/06/2025

The past few weeks at the Czech Republic World Fly Fishing Championship has been so full of ups and downs it’s taken me a while to process it all but here is a bit of an update…

We arrived in Rozmberk on the 15th May allowing us 10 days preparation and practice. This gave us time to start learning and adjusting to local conditions. For me the most important adjustment was learning about the other species of fish. This championship wasn’t just about trout, it was also about catching Chub, Grayling, Barbel, Dace and a number of other species. The most important for me was learning the behaviour of Chub as it seemed these were going to be the most common of these other species.

Unfortunately throughout the practice days a flu virus went through the entire team and at one point nearly had us all down and out trying to recover in time for the beginning of the comp week.

While we were all in a bit of a state physically it was becoming clear that we had one hell of a team mentality and the camaraderie amongst the group was really positive. Relentless banter with genuine words of encouragement mixed in. Going through this patch as a team I think prepared us well for what was to come during the competition.

On the Sunday the 25th we moved in to the Hotel where the championship was hosted. Nerves, excitement and optimism. I would also be lying if I didn’t admit on my part there was an element of self doubt creeping in the eve before the first session. More on that in the next post as I dissect the first session on Devil’s Stones…

10/06/2022

Awesome Friday session on the Taupo Rivers with . Some solid fish about. Stoked to get in on the action.

26/05/2022

The past weekend wrapped up for me my first season of competitive fly fishing with Sport Fly Fishing New Zealand with an awesome weekend on a very moody Mohaka River. On Friday night we saw a spike in flow from 12 cumecs to 20 cumecs which was a bit of a curveball and required anglers to adapt to the conditions for the first day of the competition. Sunday then saw conditions return to relative normality resulting in the unusual situation of the second day being an overall higher scoring day than the first.

It was a great opportunity to put into practice many things I had learnt throughout the course of the season. One thing I've learnt is that this game is not just about executing the technical stuff well, a huge part of it is all about making the right decisions at the right times. You always look back and critique every decision you made with 20/20 hindsight and there are always moments you wish you can have over and there were a lot of those moments this weekend but to come away with 4th in my first river nationals is something I'm very happy with.

One thing I've really enjoyed this season is the chance to see some incredible fishing from some of NZ's top anglers. Cory Scott Flyfishing showed again on the weekend the skills and class that he brings to every event, in less than ideal conditions was able to string together consistent high scores which saw him take the win which meant both Lake Nationals and River Nationals so congrats Cory on pulling off the Grand Slam.

Ben Henton and Nathan Pollard also fished incredibly well and consistently to take second and third respectively.

Organising the event was Jason and Hugo Pearce so a big thanks to them and all the organisers of Sports Fly NZ events this year. I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

Also thanks to Creel Tackle House and Cafe for the Vision Scout Waders. They got a good workout this weekend and look forward to giving them a good winter.

06/03/2022

What an awesome couple of days in some amazing country with . Being new to the competitive fly fishing scene it was awesome to learn and pick the brain of one New Zealand’s top anglers. The rivers and scenery were something else and I got to fight with a few of the strongest trout I have encountered anywhere. I learnt pretty quick that my 5X tippet was redundant and still got schooled by a good number. And to come away with some epic photos was a bonus 📸😁

If you’re looking for some epic north island fly fishing has it.

01/02/2022

After rudely neglecting the Tongariro for a variety of other rivers this year I decided to use a free afternoon to go get myself a piece of the action. Stoked to crack into this lovely brown.

Cheers for the 📸

01/01/2022

Happy New Year to all... First brown of the year and favourite fish of the day in the king country on a section of river I’d been wanting to explore for a while. Overall a good day and start to the new year.

28/12/2021

A snapshot from the most recent mission with and 😁🎣

01/11/2021

Those who follow this page may realise I'm often discussing and pondering trout vision.

Here is some further information on how the process of how these images were created for those who seem to be doubting the validity of the images. (which is fine if its valid but "a trout ate my size 20 midege from 6 feet, your wrong" isn't exactly a good counter point or even opposing what is shown here)

Visual Acuity in all species is measured in arc minutes. The lower the number of arc minutes (or seconds) the greater detail one can see. A study on rainbow trout found rather conclusively that they see with a visual acuity of 14 arc minutes. This is the study cited in the image. While it is a study from 1979 the methodology that was used is still used in visual acuity studies of other species today. So the figure of 14 minutes of arc definitely holds some credibility from a scientific perspective.

Once you have the number (14 minutes) it is possible to model a trouts visual perspective using some more modern technology that has been widely used to model other species visual perspectives. I will cite this here for anyone interested, the study shows a number of animals visual perspectives based on their visual acuity.

So by using these two resources you are able to create an image with some level of confidence that is atleast in the ball park of rainbow trouts visual perspective.

A common question I’ve had…

A fish travelled 6 feet (or more) to take my fly, how’s that possible based on your images?

This is only measuring acuity which is the detail a species can see. Just because they cannot see the detail of the fly they can still see the general profile, shape and size from a good distance which is often enough to atleast have them come closer for a look. You will notice often trout will turn away at the last minute, I think this may be due to the fact they got close enough to see it wasn’t the real deal hence the last minute rejection.

Also in the fish world compared to other species 14 minutes of arc is a very high level of acuity.

Study mentioned above:
Caves EM, Johnsen S. AcuityView: An r package for portraying the effects of visual acuity on scenes observed by an animal. Methods Ecol Evol. 2017;00:1–5

Looking to make this into something user friendly that we can all use.

13/10/2021

"Understanding where trout lie and why they lie in certain parts of a river can ensure the majority of an anglers time on the water is spent fishing water that is likely to hold trout"

What do you look for when fishing new water?

Understanding where trout lie and why they lie in certain parts of a river can ensure the majority of an anglers time on the water is spent fishing water that is likely to hold trout rather than wa…

23/09/2021

Very excited to share this article!

Myself and many anglers have long been fascinated by how trout visually perceive the world.

Unable to ask a trout, I sought out Prof. Inigo Novales Flamarique who is responsible for a large part of what we do currently understand about vision in trout and other aquatic animals.

What colours do they see? Is it the same as ours?

And in what detail?

Have a read. Hope you enjoy!

I’ve always been interested in understanding how fish, particularly trout, perceive the world around them. With this interest I’ve often researched studies around trout vision, largely …