Client Reports and Feedback from 2009/2010
Frank Daniels Jr., Raleigh, NC
Fabulous trip. Everything worked absolutely perfect. All of the scheduled events, cars lodges and airplanes were on time and very accommodating.Frank Daniels Jr., Raleigh, NC
Lovely people and beautiful scenery. Thank you for making it all happen, feel free to use us as a reference any time.
Marcia and Tom
Hi Karen,We're finally un-jet lagged and want to drop you a note to thank you for your part in a SENSATIONAL trip.
We're totally in love with New Zealand -- the physical beauty and the extraordinary warmth and happiness of its people.
Thanks again, and all best to you.
Marcia and Tom
Al Fenstermacher - Irvine, CA
Al FenstermacherConnie
We left with high expectations, but you exceeded them.
Thanks so much for making our trip special. The information you provided us, the directions, the unbelievable locations we stayed at and the people that worked there (not to mention the wonderful country and the special people that live there) made this a truly memorable trip.Thanks again for everything; we hope to go back soon.
Irvine, CA
Tom Kaplan, Las Vegas
Hi mike!Tom Kaplan, Las Vegas
Just a quick note as we depart qtown to say a huge thank you for arranging a spectacular journey through the so isle!
All the accommodations, cuisine and hospitality were outstanding, and as were each town, activity and park. Stunning country.
We especially loved steve and jeanette bough & bob and anne haswell! Incredible facilities and terrific hosts.
The breakfasts at arrowntown house were some of the best I have ever had!
Thanks so much again for arranging such a perfect trip!! We are now off to bora bora!
Mark and Cathy Pumford - Boyne City, MI
Hi Connie, We just wanted to take a moment to thank you for all your help. our vacation to New Zealand was magnificent !
You set us up in the nicest places to stay and we are grateful for all of your suggestions including the day trip up Doubtful Sound which was well worth the time and money.
Cathy took about 600 pictures and will send you some in another e-mail. We will recommend you to our friends and family if any of them ever want to vacation in NZ !
Sincerely,
Mark and Cathy Pumford
Boyne City, MI
Burt & Virginia Sarver - Tumwater, WA
Doug & Debbie Ament - San Diego, CA
George Orbanek - Grand Junction, CO
George Reinhardt - Crested Butte, CO
Paul & Martha Williams - Bishop, CA
Samuel Liu - Princeton, NJ
Stella Fong - Billings, MT
Steve & Rob Sawyer - Bothell, WA
Ben Cravatt - Palos Verdes Estates, CA
Barry Klein - Stamford, CT
Frank Daniels Jr., Raleigh, NC
Fabulous trip. Everything worked absolutely perfect. All of the
scheduled events,cars lodges and airplanes were on time and very
accommodating. Lovely people and beautiful scenery.
Thank you for making it all happen, feel free to use us as a reference any time.
Doug Ament, San Diego, CA
Andrea,I wanted to comment on two things that impressed me with Mike and your company
1. In the middle setting up this trip I was struck with the fact that I did not know Mike, BONZ or did I have any reference. I found you all on a web search.
My wife and I do not travel much and this is a big deal for us. It is a celebration of 25 years of marriage, two birthdays and a Christmas gift.
Going to NZ has also been a lifelong dream of mine. If I had a year to live it is the only place I would like to go. So needless to say it is a special trip.
So I sent out a couple reference checks on Mike to a couple of the places he recommended. All folks had nothing but good things to say about Mike and your team.
2. Mike's initial response to us was so full of free suggestions and guidance. He spent a bunch of time thinking through our specific trip and I was so impressed by his desire to paint a picture without a commitment from me to use your services. This says a lot about service and your passion for NZ.
So thanks for the service and looking after the details. I would much rather trust a pro than totally wing it on our own. Thank you again
Dave Bailey, Cornwall Bridge, CT
Mike,
It has been some time catching up and preparing for Christmas, but I want to report how wonderful the total experience was for Mike Hughes and I in New Zealand.
The time spent with Scott and his wife at River Haven was a high point in terms of facilities, food, and especially the fishing.
As expected, it was very challenging fishing, but my very first brown weighed in at eight pounds!
Scott was the very best. He got us into fish and we thoroughly
enjoyed his company.
The drive along the coast added to the enjoyment of seeing the NZ country and meeting the people. All accommodations you arranged worked out perfectly.
Our stay with the people at Nokomai was a unique experience, watching the sheep dogs work, the use of helicopters in operating the station, watching them shear the sheep, and especially the hard working host. They are a wonderful, down to earth couple and the quality of their kitchen added to our enjoyment.
The fishing at Nokomai was somewhat sub-par but not because of Len's lack of effort. He took us to beautiful waters but the fish just were not taking and this was the experience of everyone else sharing the table with us.
Nonetheless, I would not hesitate to return to Nokomai because of the
totally unique experience.
Mike, thank you for the totally professional way you and your staff arranged for our trip.
Have a great New Year and let's stay in touch.
Ginger & Burt Sarver, Tumwater, WA
Dear Andrea,
Today is our 3rd day home from New Zealand. Wow! What a fantastic trip you put together for us. We hated to leave.
I have just finished completing the evaluation form from your office and it will go out in today's mail.
I'm attaching a couple of fishing pictures to this e-mail, as I thought you'd rather have them in digital format rather than printed copy.
You'll see on the evaluation form that we had one fantastic day of fishing and the other two were disappointing, primarily due to weather. But the weather cooperated nicely for the big events when we wanted to see things:
Milford Sound, Queenstown, Mt. Cook, Punakaki, Rotorua. We had only one really nasty day and that was in Wellington when we visited the Te Papa Museum
no problem, we were inside all day anyway.
Thank you for organizing and arranging everything so perfectly. It was a grand trip
Happy Holidays to everyone at B of NZ Fly Fishing,
Ginger & Burt Sarver, Tumwater, WA
Note from their guide:
Hi Mike. Just a quick email to say all went well with Burt and Ginger
despite Burts physical limitations, fortunately we have a few rivers where long walking is not required.
21 fish landed in the 3-5lb range. We all had a great day, most enjoyable couple.
Thanks for booking.
Have a great Xmas break.
Steve
Joan & Ray Daniels, Kansas City, KS
Connie,
We are back home from a terrific trip to Australia and New Zealand.
Thank you for your part in making it a huge success. All of the
accommodations were tops.
You were wondering about the Grace Hotel in Sydney. We thought it was very good. The location was perfect--we walked to the harbor and to the Opera House (and the knitting shop was a half block away!)
Attached are pics of two fish Ray caught.
The first is a 6 lb. brown caught on the South Island. The second is a 5 lb. rainbow caught on the North Island on the last cast of the trip.
Thanks again for your help.
Joan & Ray Daniels, Kansas City, KS
George Orbanek, Grand Junction, CO
Mike,
I just finished filling out your post-trip survey and essentially gave
you, Andrea and the rest of your staff a rave review.
Rebecca particularly wants me to convey to you how pleased she was with all the accommodations you arranged for us on the south island.
And that sentiment also applies to your travel/recreation/sight-seeing recommendations for us as well.
You folks surely know New Zealand like nobody else.
I'm sending a few jpegs of some of the fish Emily and I caught during
our wonderful stay at Tongariro Lodge.
Although we caught nice-sized 17- to 22-inch trout on a daily basis, these four from the Whakapapa River were the best.
The fish of the trip is Emily's 7-pound rainbow. She is also holding a
6-and-a-half pounder.
You should consider those weights fairly reliable because our guide, Graham Dean, had a scale and he made a point to weigh them.
I, on the other hand, am holding a 5-pounder and a 5-and-a-half
pounder.
All four fish were 24 inches and above, with Emily's lunker pushing
26 inches.
Emily hooked and lost an even larger fish, what looked like an 8- to 10-pound brown.
The fish had her deep into her backing in a matter of seconds. After the first couple of frenzied runs, I thought Emily would eventually land it.
Unfortunately, that particular leviathan threw the hook after three or four minutes.
The lodge even posted some pics of Emily holding her big trout. If you care to see them, go to http://www.tongarirolodge.co.nz/ and click on the fishing tab, and then click on the 2009 gallery tab. Of course, I admit to being not exactly the most dispassionate commentator on this subject, but I would have to say that Emily is the best-looking fishergal on the worldwide web.
Again, many thanks for putting together a great, great trip for us. And, by the way, thanks for the Best of NZ Flyfishing caps and pocket Swiss army knife.
All the best,
George Orbanek, Grand Junction, CO
Raymond Kirk, Chapel Hill, NC
Hello Mike and Cristina -
The Kirks are back from NZ. We had a wonderful trip and all arrangements were flawless!
The one glitch was that this year happened to be one of the occasional
'plague of the frogs' years, and the trout were huge, but stuffed with mice from their midnight feedings, and they laid lazily in the sun digesting their mice rather than feeding during the day.
We fished the Owen, Buller, Maruia, Mangles, and Travers rivers, and it was the same everywhere.
The normally 'technical' fishing became even more so; but we had success, as the attached pix reveal.
I've included pix of myself and my son, Ian, with a couple of our big ones, with and without our guide, Greg.
Please feel free to use any of them in your next advertising brochure.
Raymond Kirk, Chapel Hill, NC
Mike Luce, Atlanta, GA
Mike -
Here is a picture that says it all !! Had a wonderful trip to NZ and thoroughly enjoyed my time with Simon and Adi. We were only able to fish one day due to some extraordinary weather, but the day I had was well worth the trip.
Caught about 10 trout and had a blast. Simon and Adi were consummate
hosts.
You can count on my being back next year !
Mike Luce, Atlanta, GA
Mike,It has been some time catching up and preparing for Christmas, but I want to report how wonderful the total experience was for Mike Hughes and I in New Zealand.
The time spent with Scott and his wife at River Haven was a high point in terms of facilities, food, and especially the fishing.
As expected, it was very challenging fishing, but my very first brown weighed in at eight pounds!
Scott was the very best. He got us into fish and we thoroughly enjoyed his company.
The drive along the coast added to the enjoyment of seeing the NZ country and meeting the people. All accommodations you arranged worked out perfectly.
Our stay with the people at Nokomai was a unique experience, watching the sheep dogs work, the use of helicopters in operating the station, watching them shear the sheep, and especially the hard working host. They are a wonderful, down to earth couple and the quality of their kitchen added to our enjoyment.
The fishing at Nokomai was somewhat sub-par but not because of Len's lack of effort. He took us to beautiful waters but the fish just were not taking and this was the experience of everyone else sharing the table with us.
Nonetheless, I would not hesitate to return to Nokomai because of the totally unique experience.
Mike, thank you for the totally professional way you and your staff arranged for our trip.
Have a great New Year and let's stay in touch.
Ginger & Burt Sarver, Tumwater, WA
Dear Andrea,Today is our 3rd day home from New Zealand. Wow! What a fantastic trip you put together for us. We hated to leave.
I have just finished completing the evaluation form from your office and it will go out in today's mail.
I'm attaching a couple of fishing pictures to this e-mail, as I thought you'd rather have them in digital format rather than printed copy.
You'll see on the evaluation form that we had one fantastic day of fishing and the other two were disappointing, primarily due to weather. But the weather cooperated nicely for the big events when we wanted to see things:
Milford Sound, Queenstown, Mt. Cook, Punakaki, Rotorua. We had only one really nasty day and that was in Wellington when we visited the Te Papa Museum
no problem, we were inside all day anyway.
Thank you for organizing and arranging everything so perfectly. It was a grand trip
Happy Holidays to everyone at B of NZ Fly Fishing,
Ginger & Burt Sarver, Tumwater, WA
Note from their guide:Hi Mike. Just a quick email to say all went well with Burt and Ginger despite Burts physical limitations, fortunately we have a few rivers where long walking is not required.
21 fish landed in the 3-5lb range. We all had a great day, most enjoyable couple.
Thanks for booking.
Have a great Xmas break.
Steve
Joan & Ray Daniels, Kansas City, KS
Connie,
We are back home from a terrific trip to Australia and New Zealand. Thank you for your part in making it a huge success. All of the accommodations were tops.
You were wondering about the Grace Hotel in Sydney. We thought it was very good. The location was perfect--we walked to the harbor and to the Opera House (and the knitting shop was a half block away!) Attached are pics of two fish Ray caught.
The first is a 6 lb. brown caught on the South Island. The second is a 5 lb. rainbow caught on the North Island on the last cast of the trip.
Thanks again for your help.
Joan & Ray Daniels, Kansas City, KS
George Orbanek, Grand Junction, CO
Mike, I just finished filling out your post-trip survey and essentially gave you, Andrea and the rest of your staff a rave review.George Orbanek, Grand Junction, CO
Rebecca particularly wants me to convey to you how pleased she was with all the accommodations you arranged for us on the south island.
And that sentiment also applies to your travel/recreation/sight-seeing recommendations for us as well.
You folks surely know New Zealand like nobody else.
I'm sending a few jpegs of some of the fish Emily and I caught during our wonderful stay at Tongariro Lodge.
Although we caught nice-sized 17- to 22-inch trout on a daily basis, these four from the Whakapapa River were the best.
The fish of the trip is Emily's 7-pound rainbow. She is also holding a 6-and-a-half pounder.You should consider those weights fairly reliable because our guide, Graham Dean, had a scale and he made a point to weigh them.
I, on the other hand, am holding a 5-pounder and a 5-and-a-half pounder.
All four fish were 24 inches and above, with Emily's lunker pushing 26 inches.Emily hooked and lost an even larger fish, what looked like an 8- to 10-pound brown.
The fish had her deep into her backing in a matter of seconds. After the first couple of frenzied runs, I thought Emily would eventually land it.
Unfortunately, that particular leviathan threw the hook after three or four minutes.
The lodge even posted some pics of Emily holding her big trout. If you care to see them, go to http://www.tongarirolodge.co.nz/ and click on the fishing tab, and then click on the 2009 gallery tab. Of course, I admit to being not exactly the most dispassionate commentator on this subject, but I would have to say that Emily is the best-looking fishergal on the worldwide web.Again, many thanks for putting together a great, great trip for us. And, by the way, thanks for the Best of NZ Flyfishing caps and pocket Swiss army knife.
All the best,
Raymond Kirk, Chapel Hill, NC
Hello Mike and Cristina -Raymond Kirk, Chapel Hill, NCThe Kirks are back from NZ. We had a wonderful trip and all arrangements were flawless!
The one glitch was that this year happened to be one of the occasional 'plague of the frogs' years, and the trout were huge, but stuffed with mice from their midnight feedings, and they laid lazily in the sun digesting their mice rather than feeding during the day.
We fished the Owen, Buller, Maruia, Mangles, and Travers rivers, and it was the same everywhere.
The normally 'technical' fishing became even more so; but we had success, as the attached pix reveal.
I've included pix of myself and my son, Ian, with a couple of our big ones, with and without our guide, Greg.
Please feel free to use any of them in your next advertising brochure.
Mike Luce, Atlanta, GA
Mike -Mike Luce, Atlanta, GA
Here is a picture that says it all !! Had a wonderful trip to NZ and thoroughly enjoyed my time with Simon and Adi. We were only able to fish one day due to some extraordinary weather, but the day I had was well worth the trip.
Caught about 10 trout and had a blast. Simon and Adi were consummate hosts.
You can count on my being back next year !
