Eglinton River

The Eglinton is the Milford Road river. It runs about 50 km from Lake Gunn down a wide glacial valley of tussock flats and beech to the east shore of Lake Te Anau, opposite North Fiord, almost all of it inside Fiordland National Park with State Highway 94 on its east bank. Brown and rainbow trout average about 2 kg, and the trout water reaches up to Cascade Creek, the stream that joins just below Lake Gunn and greatly increases the flow. Most of the fish sit in the lower and middle river around Walker Creek. The bed is stable shingle and stone with clear pools and bouldery runs, and the water is clear enough to find fish from the bank, with a faint turquoise tinge from glacial melt.

It fishes like a backcountry sight-fishing river that happens to have a road beside it. You walk the flats and beech edges, look for fish, and cast to the ones you find, so a long leader and a quiet approach matter as much as the fly. Nymphs in sizes 12 to 14 (Pheasant Tail, Hare's Ear, Halfback) and mayfly dries such as a Blue Dun or Kakahi Queen are the standard kit, with a Royal Wulff or a blowfly pattern in summer and small wets such as a Greenwell's Glory or March Brown on a rise. The season runs 1 November to 31 May. November to January and April to May are the best of it. The river floods fast in Fiordland rain and can take up to four days to clear, and no gauge reads it, so judge it by eye.

Plan around the road, the rules and the rain. The Milford Road carries heavy tour traffic, and DOC campsites line the river from Walker Creek up to Cascade Creek, so the easy water near them sees the most anglers. You may not fish from any boat or flotation device on the Eglinton, and older guides that call it fly only are out of date: the 2026–27 Southland rules allow fly, spinner and bait, with a bag of 2 trout. Didymo is already in the river, so check, clean and dry your gear before you move to another water. The Eglinton is one of the rivers DOC leaves out of its Fiordland Clean Gear Certificate area, so you can fish it without one. When it is in flood, Lake Te Anau, open all year, is the nearest fallback.