Tony Entwistle;

Premium Contributor

One way or another, my life has always been substantially linked to the world of rivers, brown trout and fly fishing.

As a seven year old I started trout fishing with a worm and have held a licence every year since.

In my early twenties I began teaching others the pleasures of fly fishing and have now taught hundreds of anglers how to cast and enjoy New Zealand’s amazing trout fisheries.

After a brief stint as a secondary school teacher I started my first guiding business in 1980, based at St. Arnaud in Nelson Lakes National Park. I helped pioneer heli-fishing into many of the magic wilderness streams that characterise the northern area of the South Island, before they became established names in international angling circles.

For seven years I was a councillor on the Nelson Acclimatisation Society and then the Nelson-Marlborough Fish and Game Council. I have actively lobbied for the protection of New Zealand’s sports fisheries for most of my adult life and have been a regular contributor of articles on fly fishing in New Zealand for more than thirty years .

The challenges that New Zealand’s unique trout fisheries present visiting anglers are ‘infamous’. So often the key to a visiting angler’s success here rests in the guide’s ability to spot and stalk the trout and assist with the best flies and techniques to catch them.

However there is more to your enjoyment of the New Zealand backcountry than simply finding and catching fish. Your guide’s experience of the weather, safe river crossing and travel in the New Zealand bush is also significant to your personal safety.

The complete experience of fly fishing for trout, the magnificent surroundings in which we indulge our passion for the sport and the wonderful people I have met as a consequence, remain very much the central pivot of my life and my reason for being.

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Fly Fishing Nelson; a place of legendary trout...

The wider Nelson area has a wealth of high quality rivers. Many remote scenic bush clad rivers are the fly fishers dream. The area is mostly a high quality Brown trout fishery, and at times the quality of the trout can be impressive. In certain conditions the Beech forest can provide a rich bounty for the trout in the form of mouse plagues, with so many mice it's inevitable that some find their way into the river where the already good size trout take full advantage of the rich protein source.

To find out the secrets of where and how to catch these splendid fish you'll need the services of a top guide, and Tony is one of the best!

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