Merry Christmas

Michael and I went to the neighbors for Christmas lunch which was a feast and there were only six people. We had turkey with cranberry sauce and roast leg of lamb. Then there were four different deserts none of which I had ever had before but they were all really good. The day after Christmas (Boxing Day here) we went to the Mataura River which is supposed to be the best brown trout fishery in the world according to the kiwis. We fished for six hours and saw some of the biggest brown trout I have ever seen in the wild. Hundreds of them actually. But not a single one showed interest in any fly we had. 99% of them were on the very bottom feeding on something in the rocks and I only had a few nymphs. But then around 9pm just before it got dark and right as the wind was picking up and making it almost impossible to cast they started rising. I hooked one of the "smaller" fish I had seen... It put on a serious fight and took me a good five minutes to land with several runs down the river.

It measured just a shade under 20" and is probably the heaviest fish I have caught on a fly rod. I can't wait to get back at it with a little less wind and go for a "medium" sized one. But three more days of tree trimming before then....