If ever there has been a summer to make a New Zealand fly fishing movie the last 12 weeks have been it. The weather has been fantastic and the fish have been in superb condition thanks to a mouse plague that happened earlier in the year.
Once we saw the size of some of the fish being caught we made the decision to begin filming The Source ・New Zealand immediately, a full 12 months earlier than planned.
In the end it was an easy decision, this summer is basically a once in a decade chance to film fish of epic proportions. It was a good choice to start when we did. It is all about timing for some things ・like meeting deadlines, for example, or purchasing airline tickets and sending job applications. The same applies for filming, especially in nature. You need to go with your instinct, and at the right time! The filming began with a trip with big fish hunter Silvio. The timing of the trip was paramount as we intended it to coincide with the first hatch of cicadas.
Big fish tend to go a bit silly when the first of these big insects hits the water and previously hard to catch fish will totally lose their heads and smash dry flies with the reckless abandon of a fingerling. We got very lucky! We hit our chosen rivers at exactly the right time. The fish were moving up to 3 meters to intercept our cicada imitations. These rivers all had a mouse plague earlier in the year and the fish were carrying an extra 2 to 3 pounds of weight.
In six days fishing we had 31 fish of which 23 were over 8lb ・three of these were doubles and four were 9.75lb. It was unbelievable! It seems like a dream now. In 17 years of trophy hunting Silvio says he has never seen anything like it. I stoked that I was lucky enough to be there with the camera to document it all.
Since then we have filmed massive Rainbows getting caught on dry fly and had some fun stripping mouse flies around for the inevitable explosive takes. Its going to be a pretty good movie.
61min.+15min bonus
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