Alex Broad – Pre Season Training

With opening day just a week away I decided I was in desperate need of some pre season training.  Its been a long winter with not a lot of fishing.

I had a bit of time to kill on Saturday so went for a drive down to my local, the Hutt river.  First fish spotted wouldn’t have a bar of anything, and he was only fish I found in the first run.  A pair of canoeists came down the river past me, so I decided my chances had just been blown in this stretch.

I re positioned upriver a bit to a favorite summer stretch.  I spotted an ok fish in the back of the pool, but decided to scope the rest of the pool out and come back to him.  2 more good looking fish were spotted on the opposite side at the head of the pool.  Battle plan hatched, and I was back down the bottom of the pool, hiding in flax bushes, timing casts with the wind so the fish wouldn’t see me casting.  A few good drifts, followed by a fly change had me hooked up to a scrappy 3.5lb jack.

After crossing through the run I snuck up to where I had seen the other fish.  The glare on the water stopped me from spotting the fish, so blind casting in the lie and slowly and methodically covering the water saw me hooked up to yet another jack, this fella was bang on 4lb.

Both Fish still a little skinny after spawning, but recovering well.  The hutt looks like it will be in very very good shape this coming season.  Fish are in good nick and the bug life looked really good.

Im off into the back country this weekend for some opening day action with other pro team members, Lucas and Andrew, no doubt this blog will be flooded with good reports of all of our opening day missions come Monday………….