Fishing in Lumsden

Here we are parked up at NZMCA Lumsden site, which is quite busy most nights, on Sunday there were 14 vans staying overnight. Lumsden is obviously a good stop off point for people heading into or returning from Fiordland or travelling to or from Queenstown or west from Dunedin & the Catlins as we are. There are many NZMCA sites around New Zealand and joining the association is made all the more worthwhile having these convenient sites to stay at for minimal cost.

We've been here the last few days while David has been trying his luck fishing both in the Oreti River which is just behind the site & another smaller stream on the Queenstown road. The Oreti looks very much like the Hawkes Bay rivers we're both used too & especially like the Tuki Tuki; braided, shallow with a few deep pools, gravel & willows as far as you can see. The river wasn't that clear & no fish were spotted the evening he tried his luck there. David was keen to move onto the stream the next day.

We've also had the added distraction of my brand new (now 6 weeks old) super duper computer dying on me! I bought a lemon :(  Today I drove back down to Invercargill (160km round trip) to return it to the store. We have been dealing with the manufacturer & they have been great, all things considered.

The computer had been showing signs of failure for a few weeks & they said we could replace or get a refund, it was just a matter of how we could get it back to Invercargill. It had actually settled down for the past week & we thought maybe it'll be fine. But no last night while I was trying to write this blog it gave a few flickers and the screen went blank. It could not be revived.

So now I have to wait 3 weeks to get a new computer. Long story short; we are going into the wops (Mavora Lakes) for 2-3 weeks & the service department in Christchurch have to recover my data & put it onto the new computer which will take a week or so. I'm keen for them to do a good job that's not rushed, the hard drive has all my Catlins photos on it & silly me, I hadn't done a backup for a couple of weeks! After that we'll have to collect the new computer from Gore when we come out from the wops. These things happen I know but everything becomes doubly difficult when you're on the road. Thankfully David hadn't removed all my old data off this computer so I'm back to my old Sony for awhile sharing it with David along with the iPad.

Back to the fishing; this is the stream that David found when he went exploring. He had spotted three brown trout feeding in a pool and targeted these the afternoon that I joined him.

It was a scorching hot day, the water crystal clear & ice cold. It still looked very inviting though so I went for a walk to find a deep pool away from the fisherman & his trout to take a dip. It certainly was very brisk! But I felt so much cooler sitting reading my book in the shade afterwards.

The trout were not interested in any of the nymphs David presented, they were such a tease, you could see them as clear as anything. They'd swim out from under the trees into the flow, grab their food and then shoot back. I told David if he did catch any of them he'd have to release them as they were like friends in the end, evil friends taunting us. None were caught. Yet.

Looking down the stream towards The Peak which overlooks Lumsden.