Not every fishing is session is full on action, especially when fishing a lure. Despite what the angling magazines would have us believe, it is not uncommon for anglers to have blank sessions or sessions where very few fish are hooked. Even professional guides have tough days where the fish do not seem to want to cooperate. On these days it is important to make … Continue reading HOW TO BECOME A BETTER LURE FISHER
Text: Alan Bulmer Images: Frank Richard & Paul Smith Not every fishing is session is full on action, especially when fly fishing. Despite what the angling magazines would have us believe, it is not uncommon for anglers to have blank sessions or sessions where very few fish are hooked. Even professional guides have tough days where the fish do not seem to want to cooperate. On … Continue reading HOW TO BECOME A BETTER FLY FISHER
Text: Alan Bulmer Images: Mark Hoffman As you have probably gathered from the images posted on Active Angling I am a firm advocate of wearing camouflage clothing when fishing the flats, especially when using a fly rod. While it may not make much of a difference what you wear if you only fish around dawn or dusk once the sun rises and bathes the flats in light … Continue reading DOES CAMOUFLAGE CLOTHING WORK?
Soft plastics, or soft baits, were not readily available in New Zealand until the early 21st Century. Since then the growth in popularity of these lures has been phenomenal due to their success in catching a wide variety of fish species. I started using them in the late 1990’s when I imported some Sassy shads from the USA. They were an immediate success, especially on … Continue reading HOW TO FISH SOFT PLASTIC LURES
Text: Alan Bulmer & Mike Ladle Images: Ross Baker (Tongariro River Motel) One of the biggest challenges facing wet fly or nymph anglers fishing in rivers is to figure out what the current is doing below the surface. If you can understand this then it makes it easier to identify where the trout will be holding and hatch a plan to effectively present a fly … Continue reading UNDERSTANDING FLOW BEHAVIOUR IN RIVERS
Text: Alan Bulmer & Tony Bishop Featured Image: Paul Smith Indicator nymphing, especially as it is practiced on the Tongariro River in NZ, can be a tricky art to master. Due to the large volume of water typically flowing down the Tongariro, the typical nymph rig for the turbulent, deep runs is a couple of tungsten bead head nymphs suspended below a yarn indicator. Often the … Continue reading DEMYSTIFYING INDICATOR NYMPHING
Text: Alan Bulmer Lead Image: Mark Hoffman New Zealand is a long narrow country and no point is more than 120 kilometres from the sea. This peculiar geography, coupled with differential heating and cooling of land and water during the day, means that irrespective of where you are wind is likely to feature at some point during the day. If you do not … Continue reading STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH THE WIND
Text: Alan Bulmer & Tony Bishop For many years I found swirling eddies amongst the most tricky places to fish. This was probably because the current flows were typically powerful, turbulent and unpredictable. Swirling eddies are often formed where the river changes direction abruptly and are generally deep and difficult to see into. Trout, especially those moving upstream on spawning runs or dropping back downstream … Continue reading FISHING SWIRLING EDDIES
Ivan Bulmer, Alan’s late father, was a bait fishing expert. He lived in Whangamata and used to help out as “boat boy” on many of the charter vessels based there, especially MV Te Ra and Astraea. Most weeks he would help out on two or three charters and over the summer he’d be on board one of the boats almost daily. It certainly kept … Continue reading THE LEDGER RIG JIG
Text: Mike Ladle and Alan Bulmer Featured image: David Miller – Striped Assassins This article from retired UK marine biologist Dr Mike Ladle looks at the scientific studies conducted on perch (Redfin) in Europe to find out what they eat throughout the year. While the research was conducted in the Northern hemisphere it is very likely that the discoveries also hold true in the … Continue reading WHAT DO PERCH EAT?
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