New Zealand: Trout fishing guides

Trout fishing aficionados will love two new books on New Zealand's trout fishing scene. Photo / Alan Gibson

Two new trout fishing guide books will appeal to the tourist market and the travelling angler, as well as the New Zealand flyfisher.

Destination Trout New Zealand (David Bateman), by fishing luminaries Kent Fraser and Adam Clancey, is a class production that includes a dozen top fish-catcher flies and a three-hour DVD on the 12 locations visited in the book.

All this is backed by a New Zealand music soundtrack.

The authors give extensive coverage of how, where and when.

Each location is accompanied by a map and information on access, angling, season, techniques, flies and rigs, tips and tricks, equipment and clothing, and flora and fauna.

This information is accompanied by photographs, and a wrap-up of local resources, things to remember and things to do.

Australian angler Rob Sloane's rather ominously titled Fifty Places to Fish Before You Die (Viking), takes in "the best fly-fishing destinations in Australia and New Zealand".

Twenty-four of them are by 10 angling writers - including editor Sloane, who has gathered saltwater fly locations as well as freshwater.

Readers will find Craig Worthington's chapter on the Parengarenga Harbour - "the jewel in the crown of New Zealand saltwater flyfishing" - highly interesting.