
This summer was one of the most frustrating one, cos weather was too wet and rough.
But, fresh water fishing wise, it wasnt too bad. especially when water is bit too high. Spin fishing with braided lines is awesome.
The beauty of trout spin fishing with braids is not to mention, you can feel lots more thing plus distance casting is possible. You can target lots more areas than with fly lines, and fishing is faster.
Of course, when fish are in spawning condition, they dont chase spin lures too much, but when they are in eating mood, you catch 20 or 30 a day easily.
Down side is, it's not easy to obtain top range spin gears including "minnow lures" in this country, which seem to be most effective style when fish are hungry.
I took my customers to spin fishing the other day, on the day, weather was **** as, strong wind and bloody raining. I saw some slides on the road, on the way to the spot.
But, I knew on the day like this, spin fishing in some lakes works super good. Plus my customer had only a week off, so they wanted to do something.
I took them to one of the lakes in Rotorua area.
My customers and me hooked up more than 30 fish, then landed probably more than 2 dozen.



The wind was super strong, so fly fishing or spinnig with mono lines was almost impossible (even so, I caught some with my 7 weight fly gear),
I mainly used Varivas squid jigging braid, PE0.8. Accututally this line did the business. Because of thinner diameter than normal braids and less stretch, even under the stormy condition, we were able to target further spots and feel heaps more thnigs.
http://yeehaa.co.nz/braided+line,+mono,+nanodax,+prosele,+varivas,+/Squid+,Fishing?product_id=222
Plus when fish took our lures, lots sharper hook setting was possible.
Daiwa Chinook S 10g and 14g were the main lures my customers used and I used 'Lightning Wobbler" 10g from Tiemco (this one is bit hard to get) Colour wise, orange or pink ones seemed to work quite well.
Then, we went to Heli Fishing.
up there, minnow lures was deadly to big trout.
From my point of view, minnow lures appeal better for wilder trout, because the actions of those lures are heaps more aggressive than spoon type trout lures in general.


(this one was caught on a nymph though)
Spin fishing for trout is sometimes bit too under-estimated, but with braids and new systems, this style fishing changed a lot for the last 10 years, like softbaiting did in the past.
I believe there is a lot of potential for spinning for trout in NZ.