Chris Reygaert's Manic Fly Collection Picks For This Season
With a plethora of options in the far south of New Zealand Chris Reygaert, aka Fiordland Fishing Guide, has been pushing the limits and making the most of the downtime in between fickle guide days over the last couple of COVID-influenced guiding seasons.
It has been a mixture of faraway backcountry locations, to local red letter days on some of the more accessible streams and rivers. Even the lake edges produced some phenomenal dry fly and streamer action with fish eager for a feed as they zone in on the sound or splash of a closely landed fly, often moving a very long way to intercept the chance of a feed with reckless abandon.
So, with all of that downtime product testing under his belt, Chris shares a few of his favourite flies from the Manic Fly Collection that did the damage over the quiet months.
CHRIS REYGAERT’S TOP PICKS FROM THE MANIC FLY COLLECTION
RENE’S SKINNY BUGGER
Don’t underestimate the Skinny Bugger. From the estuaries to the headwaters there’s always small fish or crustacean-like prey on offer for the wily trout. Just throw it in there and hang on, they’ll hunt them down - just don’t try and eat them yourself. Even great on the Kahawai aka the black back salmon for all the Aussie’s! (Oi, oi, oi).
SWISHER’S PMX
A session that will go down in the history books for our group saw us throwing the biggest most gargantuan flies we had in our boxes. The Manic sz8 Swisher’s PMX were just an entree. Just the noise of the flies whizzing in the air as they were cast had to be heard to be believed. It was hilarious. This however was one of those red-letter days that needed to be seen and taken advantage of.
TRICO SPINNER
When the fishing is a little tough on the smaller dry flies during a mayfly hatch, don’t forget the trusty old Manic Trico Spinner. I’ve fished many an early rise or late dun hatch successfully on rivers and lakes with this pattern. Well presented, this also goes well when the grubs are dropping.
In all honesty, we’ve had it pretty good over here in NZ for the last couple of years. It’s been tough economically but It’s been great getting out and checking some new waters with all the free time during the seasons. Now that the borders are open I’m sure there are plenty of anglers chomping at the bit to get over and make up for lost time, so look me up!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Some might say he's the better-looking of the Reygaert brothers, other will definitely say he's a good sort. Either way, we think he's an awesome dude and well worth booking for a few days guiding in the Fiordland region.