NZ: Central North Island
The secrets of the other island
There’s been a lot written about named New Zealand’s fly fishing rivers. Articles I’ve read in FlyLife, Fly Fisherman and other magazines blatantly name the access roads and other locational markers, thereby destroying any chance for the named river to avoid the immediate increased pressure that comes directly from public exposure.
As damaging, perhaps more so given the reach and longevity of Internet content, are the YouTube videos, Instagram reels and Facebook videos that unashamedly expose the hut names, track signage or obvious location marks such as photographing a named swing bridge with hut in the background. Exasperating.
Even our local Fish and Game NZ website and licence regulations provide lists of our top rivers, tributaries and lake names. Naming some of our most fragile under the Backcountry, Designated Water, or Controlled Fisheries licensing and ballot systems already exposes a large number of streams to increased attention. At least some of these operate under regulations that limit angler pressure, particularly those in the South Island.
Before I’m accused of hypocrisy, the information listed within the group of articles I’m publishing on backcountry Central North Island river systems is already easily accessible in other publications. Yup, freely available on the Internet if you search. I’m merely providing a repository and an updated data source to my subscribers.
By providing an extensive list of angling options, this widens the choice available to visiting and local anglers to the central North Island of New Zealand and reduces pressure on the easily accessible stretches of the historically more well known ‘name’ river systems.
I hope all of this information proves to be useful to prospective visitors to New Zealand in 2024 and beyond. It updates some of the guide books that were written back in the 1990s and don’t reflect the changes to access, river quality and angler pressure that has occured over the past thirty years.
