Riverview Lodge, New Zealand

Cathy sent us some photos from Riverview Lodge in New Zealand where they have been for almost a week. The weather is warm, bright and sunny almost continuously and the fishing has been some of the best ever. Lots of big fish (7 pounds and up) caught on big dry flies — cicadas and beetles, along with some nymphs. The biggest so far? 10 pounds, 2 of them! Fresh strawberries from the garden and sight fishing to big browns. Does it get any better?

Great RIO Product!

Picture this - the South Island of New Zealand, what we call the Everest of trout fishing, we're on the Hope River with our friend and guide, John Gemmell. We've just finished landing our third trout from one pool. The largest was 10.5 pounds, followed by an acrobatic 9 pound fish, and finally a smaller 7.5 fish. All were landed on the new RIO 4X Powerflex Plus tippet material. This stuff is absolutely amazing. John said in all of his years of guiding he's never seen
anything this thin or this strong. We agree. If staying connected to the trout of a lifetime matters to you, you owe it to yourself to try RIO Powerflex Plus

We just got an email from Barry and Cathy, currently in New Zealand.  It sounds like they are having a great trip although anywhere with some sunshine sounds good to us in NE PA right now!  The snow, ice & cold have settled in here, however I just keep reminding myself that February is almost half over and Spring is right around the corner.  Below is Cathy's summary of the week.  I'm also including a link to RIO's Blog which Barry wrote.  It's a fun story about his recent trip to Erie where he joined up with two fishing guides.  We hope you'll take a look.

Report from the Field

We have finished our stay at Riverview Lodge in Hamner Springs, New Zealand, and are now at Owen River Lodge, near Murchison. Both on the South Island. Our group finished up a great week at Riverview despite tough weather the first day. After the wind and the rain, the week turned out to be a beautiful fishing week with enough breeze to keep the sand flies down and lots of sun to make spotting fish easier for the guides. Four 11 pound browns were landed in our group of 5 anglers and a lot of 5 to 9 pound fish. The most common size this week seemed to be 6-1/2 pounds as almost everyone caught fish in that range. Of course, we all saw fish bigger than 11 pounds and that's what keeps us coming back to Riverview. Our favorite rod has been the 590-4 Method with an In touch RIO Grand WF5F line. We've got two of them and they make a perfect outfit for NZ, turning over long leaders and big flies in the wind. John & Robin Gemmell are wonderful hosts and we look forward to our next visit with them. If New Zealand is not on your to-do list, it should be! We now look forward to 8 days fishing at Owen River Lodge.    -Cathy

Barry's RIO Blog

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