Hunting New Zealand’s massive brown trout is a bucket-list trip for most anglers. Hunting for those legendary fish with one of the country’s best guides on his day off is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Idaho guide, photographer and writer Nick Price was lucky enough to convince renowned New Zealand guide Scott Murray to allow him to tag along for a day full of meat pies, stalking strategy and a few giant fish.

Words: Nick Price

Scott and I are standing in knee-deep, crystal-clear water. He’s casting to what appears to be an eight-plus pound brown. With a dense beech tree-lined bank and green moss and ferns to the water’s edge, it is precisely what I think of as heaven. “I’ve never been on a river like this,” I say quietly.

It’s fast and narrow—almost four-feet deep. Scott changes his fly for the third time. “He’s being kinda toey,” Scott says. That’s his way of saying the fish isn’t being very responsive. He moves his small wool indicator up his leader.

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