If you are looking for an outdoor adventure, a day on the Tongariro River in the central plateau of New Zealand is hard to beat.

In the wilderness, we didn’t see another person all day as we fished with local guide Andrew Christmas.

With little rain over the last few weeks, the water is transparent and the brown trout were clearly visible, with as many as 15 in one pool. They are night feeders and are hard to catch but with perseverance we annoyed two males sufficiently to take the nymph.

Two brown jacks

A little further downstream I caught a beautiful rainbow on a dry-fly as it sat in the well-oxygenated water in the rapids.

As we head into winter, the fishing gets easier as the rainbow head up-stream to spawn, however it will be hard to beat the blue sky on Friday.