While most North American trout anglers are starting to bundle up, slinging streamers and squeezing in the last floats of the year, the Kiwis are celebrating the opening of trout season. “Brown trout rivers” opened October 1st, though rivers where rainbows are prolific are still a bit longer closed due to spawning.

More than 10,000 miles from Atlanta (okay, so it’s really 8,580 miles to Queenstown as the extended range model crow flies), all of my Kiwi angler friends are urging on summer and stuffing their fly boxes with hare and coppers, bead head pheasant tails, Dore’s Mr. Glisters, big #10 triple-hackle bushy-as-Hell dries and cicada patterns that can take double figure fish on top, and whatever else tends to take trout that live literally in their back yards.

Lucky bastards.

So let’s get down to it. Who’s going? Who’s there? What’s going on? And how does the season look like it’s shaping up, mates?

Anyone in North America reading this have a trip on the books this year to New Zealand? Tell us about it! And if you’re really going or at least considering doing so, don't miss the two part New Zealand DIY primer we produced way back when that just might be helpful.

Cheers!