Cedar Lodge: High Country Beauty and the Day I'll Never Forget

Part 1: Poronui Lodge VIDEO & Report - Heli-Fishing for Trophy Trout, CLICK HERE

Part 2: Owen River Lodge, New Zealand: Trophy Trout, Familiar Waters, and a New Chapter, CLICK HERE

Part 3: Cedar Lodge: High Country Beauty and the Day I'll Never Forget

The final stop on our New Zealand swing brought us south to Cedar Lodge, about thirty minutes north of Wanaka. New Zealand is not short on scenery, but this part of the South Island feels different. The country is bigger, sharper, more dramatic. It looks like trout water before you ever see a river.

How did you get there?

After finishing at Owen River Lodge in the Nelson Lakes district, we flew from Nelson to Queenstown. From there we chose to rent a car instead of taking the lodge transfer and made the drive to Wanaka and then on to Cedar.

It is an easy two hour drive and well worth doing. Lake Wanaka opens up in front of you and the mountains start stacking up as you head north. It gives you a sense of the scale of the country before you ever step into a river.

What was your accommodation and meals experience?

Cedar is intentionally small, hosting just eight guests at a time. The lodge is centered around a comfortable dining and living space with guest rooms on either side. The rooms are not large but they are clean, well designed, and comfortable.

What stood out to me was how deliberate everything felt. The team at Eleven has clearly thought through the details. Music curated for the mood, special daily cocktails, appetizers by the fire, and a unique and fun casting course for evening practice or friendly competition.

Helicopters and Fishing Perspective

Every fishing day at Cedar includes helicopter access. That alone changes your mindset before you ever make a cast. You lift off directly from the field in front of the lodge. Within minutes you are flying through terrain that would take days or longer to reach on foot. Some flights are ten minutes. Others are closer to thirty. Jagged peaks, snow fields, glacial valleys. Even if you never made a cast, the magic of the flights would stay with you.

From a fishing standpoint, the program is well rounded. Many of the river bottoms are relatively clean, which makes wading manageable for a wide range of anglers. There are exceptions, particularly on parts of the West Coast, but overall the access is approachable. The mix of fisheries is another strength. You can target both rainbows and browns depending on the system and conditions. It keeps the week interesting and allows guides to adjust based on weather and water levels.

The Day I'll Never Forget

I was lucky to have solid fishing throughout my stay, including one day when we thought the weather might limit us. A bit of creative flexibility from a thoughtful guide and some luck saved that one. But there was another day that was a complete stunner. It was one of those “you should have been there” kind of days that you never forget and end up chasing for years.

The short version is that the river had come up slightly from rain the day before. In this system, which holds both rainbows and browns, the higher water had pushed a surprising number of large browns tight to the bank, and almost all of them were feeding on the surface. Dozens of fish were actively gorging themselves. As we worked our way upstream we found a fish, sometimes two, in most of the likely spots. Many were tucked close to the bank, and quite a few were positioned under overhanging branches, which made the approach and presentation challenging. Each time we spotted one, we stopped and strategized, usually accompanied by some good-natured ribbing about my ability, or lack thereof, to actually make the cast when it mattered.

I did not do everything right, and two fish that would have surely topped my best in New Zealand never made it to the net. But by midday I had already experienced more high-level dry fly encounters with big brown trout than I could emotionally process. The first three fish went almost exactly as planned. I made casts that were good enough and was rewarded with those classic, painfully slow dry fly takes. Fish of roughly five, six, and seven pounds came to the net. Honestly, by that point my day was already made. But it was still early.

The next fish was one of the really big ones. For me, “really big” means fish in the ten pound plus range. It was sitting in a swirling eddy, feeding erratically with bits of current pushing food across the surface. We spent quite a bit of time watching, trying to find a pattern in the flow that might give us a clean drift. Finally, we added about two extra feet to the tippet and decided to go for it.

The first cast landed right where it needed to. The fly drifted directly over the fish’s nose. It did not eat immediately, but after the fly passed, it slowly turned and began following it downstream. How long it followed is hard to say, but it felt like forever. I am pretty sure neither of us breathed. Then the mouth rose. Opened. Closed. I lifted. And the fly came out!

We both exhaled at the same time. Neither of us said anything for a moment, but we both knew I had done almost everything right. If I had waited one more second, the story would likely have ended very differently.

By lunch I was shattered in the best possible way. It is hard to describe, but to me there is a psychological intensity to sight fishing in New Zealand. Every fish is visible. Every cast is evaluated in real time. You know immediately whether you executed correctly or not. When it works, it is electric. When it does not, there is nowhere to hide.

For me, this is exactly why I come to New Zealand. I love every part of it: the hiking, the fish spotting, the strategy with your guide, and most of all the one fish at a time focus and visual nature of the fishing. Almost every day in New Zealand delivers some version of that experience. But that particular day delivered it at a level that felt extra special and very difficult to replicate.