About Alan
My story
50 years fishing means that angling, and especially fly fishing has become ingrained into my life.
I started as a nine year old with rod and worm accompanying my Dad on the Pomahaka River in West Otago back in the 60’s which was near our farm in Waipahi at the time.
After we moved to Timaru in the 1970’s I became seriously interested in fly fishing but didn’t start my guided fishing tours until 1995 at the same time as we were running the Glenburn Holiday Park in Omarama (now known as the Lake Benmore Holiday Park).
Before that I was too busy fishing myself!!!
The last thirty years I have been based in Twizel which is centrally located to all these great fishing spots in the Mackenzie Country. I have also fished in France (for trout, pike and grayling) and Denmark for trout.
I have a strong connection with France, as that is where I met and married my wife Marie-Francoise in the early 80s after competing as an amateur cycle racer for six full seasons beginning in 1977.
Marie is of course a crucial part of my fly fishing guide operation – she makes the lunch!!
To this day we both travel back to France every year during the New Zealand winter to catch up on family and friends. In NZ Marie busies herself with her roses, cycling and an occasional round of golf.
How we started
The steel back nymph started from an idea I had some several years ago (2012) to make use of some left-over steel wire ties from a building project.
The original model was very complicated to “tie” but proved irresistible to trout on it’s very first
outing on the Tekapo River accounting for 8 good fish in the same pool in an hour. I was convinced I was on to something ground breaking!
Since then, I have refined the design to make it more durable and more consistant to make. I hesitate to use the word “tie” since there are several steps which have more to do with engineering than tying in the classic sense of the word!
It’s my “go to” pattern especially since there are so many back/body/thorax options, and it has
caught trout in every single stream and lake I, and my clients, regularly fish. When it comes to
weighted nymphs these are pretty much the only ones I use.
The SBN represents, as far as I can deduce, everything from mayfly and caddis nymphs all the way
through to snails!
Why the SBN?
Today there are thousands of artificial fishing flies in circulation with practically every conceivable
combination already explored, replicated, modified and remodified!
The SBN is radically different from any other weighted nymph.
It’s bold outline sets it apart and, best of all, trout just love them!!
Give them a try. I know you won’t be disappointed.