Ollie Bassett Fly Fishing

12/06/2026

New winter Euro nymphing clinics coming up in Tūrangi on Saturday July 18th and August 15th. More details are available on my website www.olliebassettflyfishing.com

10/06/2026

https://youtu.be/y0v-C7DUt7g

New video ⬇️

How to tie and Euro Nymph with Slushy Egg flies in Rotorua, New Zea...

04/06/2026

Early starts and big browns with .co.fish

20/05/2026

15/05/2026

Excited to tie some flies and chat about fly fishing at the Patagonia fly bar in Tāhuna Queenstown next Thursday May 21st.

02/05/2026

The colours of autumn 🍂

02/05/2026

Ollie Bassett retains Sport Fly Fishing New Zealand Overall National Championship 2026.

Following the Lake and River Nationals, the overall championship is awarded to the angler with the lowest place points across the two events.

This year, following his terrific performance on Lake Kuratau, two-time overall Champion Billy Thrupp took a healthy lead into the rivers event a few weeks later, but Ollie Bassett’s perfect score of four session wins saw him overtake Billy by some margin. Noah Shapiro’s consistent performance across both events saw him finish runner-up and Billy did just enough to hang on to third.

SFFNZ President, Cory Scott, commented “Ollie’s performances continue to excel, and his retention of the title is a testament to that, as well as his commitment to the sport. Iron sharpens iron, and it is by no mistake that two good mates who fish together regularly in Ollie and Noah, duked it out for the top two places.

Over the last few years, the strength of our younger anglers has really come to the fore and I would like to congratulate all of them and other newcomers, in particular our rising youth anglers Anthony Guest on making the podium in his first year competing at the river nationals and going on to represent NZ at the Oceania Championships, as well as Daniel Anderson and Liam Spence, all products of recent SFFNZ Youth programmes. Another honourable mention goes to Hayden Stewart on qualifying for both formats in his first year of competing.

In fact, everyone in this table who made it to both Nationals during the season, deserves huge acclaim for their achievement”.

Ollie said “I was delighted to take out the 2026 overall national title for the third year running. I’d like to thank Fulling Mill and Patagonia for their support, two great brands which help provide me with the best equipment to use.”