Readers and clients have been writing to me asking some basic questions about fly fishing in New Zealand. I reply to all these queries but as both Qs & As have become quite repetitive I thought there must be a better way of handling this. And there is!

Doug Stevens at nzfishing.com has put together an excellent primer about all you need to know planning your trip to this Country of Trout. Beyond the usual must-know nuts and bolts of travel, he has written up a detailed month-by-month breakdown of what’s happening and where. Best of all this essential ebook is free. You can download it here.

Doug has also put together six regional guidebooks about fly fishing in New Zealand – three for each island – and these are available for purchase here.

Happy fishing and may the trout rise for you wherever you go!

Look what I’ve found in the back eddy of the cyberspace! A superb documentary about visiting and fishing the hallowed waters of Izaak Walton and his Compleat Angler. Take an hour off, pour yourself a glass of your favourite, and enjoy this lyrical journey of author and artist James Prosek

Apparently, The Compleat Angler is the 3rd most published book in English language, after the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, though now Tolkien would probably be a close contender too. You can get The Compleat Angler as a free Kindle ebook here

Next time you lose a fish remember Walton’s timeless words:

“You cannot lose what you never had”

Happy fishing!

Marc Petitjean using his Magic Tools in New Zealand backcountry

My post about Marc Petitjean’s Magic Tool and how it simplifies fly tying with CDC, has been hugely popular so here’s its sequel, this time about tying a basic Caddis fly. Watch how Marc does it, his tying is poetry in motion. Between the mayfly from the previous post and this caddis here you’ll have most of the dry flies covered. And, after you’ve tried and tested these CDC gems, you’ll never want to go near a trout stream without them.

For GUIDED Fly-Fishing in New Zealand visit us here

For signed copies of THE TROUT DIARIES and THE TROUT BOHEMIA go to our online bookshop here

Happy fishing!

THE TROUT BOHEMIA, Fly Fishing Travels in New Zealand, is now on #Kindle and will be on #Kobo and #iTunes next week. Enjoy!

You can get it HERE !

“Derek Grzelewski writes like a dazzling impressionist. Trout Bohemia will make you think that fly fishing was just invented, and that every river is waiting to be explored for the first time.” Marshall Cutchin, MidCurrent

 SIGNED COPIES of THE TROUT BOHEMIA and THE TROUT DIARIES are available in our online bookshop here. Worldwide shipping.

After my posts on Southland dry flies and the life cycles of trout insects many of you have been asking about tying with CDC. My friend Marc Petitjean has developed a revolutionary, simple and cheap gadget to take the headaches out of tying CDC flies.

Here’s a demo of Marc tying a basic hi-vis and first-choice parachute dry fly using split thread and his Magic Tool. Anyone can complicate things, but it takes genius to simplify them. Watch the Master at work.  For more than a decade he had been tying over 25,000  CDC flies a year! Learn and enjoy:

For guided fly fishing in New Zealand, including spectacular Southland dry fly, contact me here.