Posts

Posted on

Take the kids fishing and reminisce

27 January, Waiau River, Clifden

I’ll start this story a few days earlier when we went out and bought a new car for the family. We test drove a Toyota Camry, Honda Accord Euro, and a Mazda 6. Now I honestly can’t say anything bad about any of the cars we tested. The Camry was a nice smooth drive, very comfortable, and masses of space for the family. The Honda made me feel like a businessman, again a nice ride, with fantastic comfort throughout the car, not as big as the Camry, but plenty big enough for the wife and kids. The Mazda however blew me away, the same size as the Accord but with a Tardis like boot for the kids … err I mean groceries and camping gear and stuff. What really got me however was just how much fun it is to drive, the 15 minute test drive we had was awesome, I totally understand “Zoom-zoom” now. Also of the 3 cars, it was the cheapest, and the salesman made it even cheaper with a 3 year mechanical warranty thrown in for good measure. I totally recommend the Mazda 6 if you are in the market for a mid-sized family car.

So with a new car, one must embark on a first journey in order to get to know ones new car, become one with the mechano-beast you now own. Thus I decided I would take the kids to the place I caught my first trout 25 years earlier under the guidance of my grandfather, the once mighty Waiau River at the Clifden suspension bridge called out to me to share this joy with my kids. So after dropping Mum off at work, the kids and I set sail for Clifden, a good 90 minute drive west along the southern scenic route from Invercargill. The drive out there was everything I wanted from the car, power on demand, smoothness personified (like me after a few beers), and almost no road noise due to the kids singing along to Clutch “BANG BANG BANG … VAMONOOSE VAMONOOSE!!!” I was in heaven.

We arrive at Clifden, a little deafer than when we left home, with the sun beating down on all and sundry in a typical Southland style. I will adamantly stand by the fact that although the temperature isn’t as high as other parts of the world, the feeling you get from the sun is beyond anything else. Might have something to do with being closer to that hole in the sky or something … who knows? Anyway, we cover ourselves in sunscreen, everyone dons a hat, my son puts on the Export Gold cuban fedora I got free with a 24 pack of beer and I notice the old tourists in their campervan look at us funny as an 8-year old walks past sporting the latest in beer fashions, old prudes, bet they were English and are still whinging about it to someone who doesn’t want to hear anymore.

We start wandering down to the river, we are halfway down the track when my daughter decides she needs to go to the toilet, “Sorry sweetheart, there aren’t any toilets here, go behind that bush there”.

“But Daddy, I need to do poooooos”

“Ummm … no one will see you behind the bush, you’ll be right sweetie”

“It’s OK, I’ll wait til we get home”

Meanwhile the young fella has bolted off ahead with rod in hand looking for water, my daughter and I catch up to find him casting at the very spot I caught my first fish all those years ago. I began thinking if I’d have as much trouble getting him away from the river as my grandfather and father did when we were here…

“Just one more cast Dad”

“Just one more”

“This is the last one”

“Righto, as soon as I reel this in”

“Grandad, I’m snagged on something …”

“DAD!!! I CAUGHT A FISH!!! AND IT’S BIGGER THAN YOURS!!!!!”

My daughter and I sit down and have some sandwiches and fruit for lunch and I tell her the story of when Grandad and Dad bought me here when I was her age and I caught my first fish. That 5 pound monster, which was as long as I was tall (seriously, I’m searching my mothers house for the photo to prove it). She seems enthralled about this, and then asks me about the bridge and if we can drive over it. The Clifden Suspension bridge was in serious disrepair when I landed that trout and has undergone some serious restoration work since then due to it’s historical significance. It looks pretty cool, but there is no way in a frozen hell I’m gonna consider taking anything heavier than a pair of shoes across it. After explaining this to the girl, my son comes back sheepishly with a tangled line, I tell him to have some lunch and I’ll fis it up and try and catch something to take home … who knows, if I’m lucky I might get another tree.

After 20 minutes with this line I’m starting to think it’s time to get a new reel and line for this rod perhaps, I know it wasn’t expensive gear, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Anyways I wade through the shallow arm of the river, barely getting my ankles damp, and take up residence next to the main flow where the water is a bit deeper, by now it’s far to hot for any trout to be swimming around in the shallows, they will likely be chilling in the deeps playing hard to get.

With the proven success of the Thunderbug on the end of the line I start casting across the river hoping to lure a nice sized trout out from the depths for brunch. After 5 minutes with no interest I am jolted back to reality with the shrill cries of a distraught 5 year old …

“HE STOLE MY COOKIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!”

“Didn’t I get you kids two cookies?”

“Yes”

“Did he take both of them?”

“No”

“Where’s the other one then?” I was clever and bought two identical cookietime cookies at the shop … at least I thought I was.

“In the bag”

“Then you have that”

“But that’s his”

“…”

With the dramas of stolen cookies sorted, I again have 2 happy kids looking for fancy rocks and playing around happily behind me, and occasionally asking to go home, while I lose myself in the serenity of the flowing waters in front of me. The Waiau today is merely a shadow of its former self, if the stories my granfather told me are to be believed at least. He told me that before the control dams for the Manapouri Power Station went in that the Waiau was more like a long waterfall than a river, apparently one of the fastest flowing rivers in the country, and as such also one of the most dangerous. Yet at the same time home to some of the freshest waters, and some bloody big fish. The bigger the risk, the better the reward I suppose.

After learning from my lapses in concentration the previous week, I was solely focused on my lure, the water here is clear enough to follow the lure most of the way through the water. But somehow I was taken by surprise when the trout latched onto it, I went through the motions and kept the line tight as the battle began, at least, I was hoping it would be a battle. My shouts had attracted the attention of the kids and they came running over to see what was going on, almost as if it was scripted the trout jumped as they arrived, he looked to be a good 3 or 4 pounds, and definitely a brown, the kids were excited, my day was already complete. The trout and I battled for several minutes until I had him on the beach, I removed the Thunderbug from his lip, and then the question – Do I kill him and take him home for dinner? or do I set an example for the kids and release him back to the waters?

“Can we keep him Dad?” says the girl.

“If we keep him we have to kill him.” I point out.

“I don’t want to kill him” she states.

“Neither do I” he agrees.

“So we will let him go home then.” I suggest to the two nodding heads.

For some reason this made me very proud, when I was their age I was a ruthless killer, anything I caught was killed, gutted and taken home to get freezer burn cause no one in the house actually liked trout. That was mostly true today still, I don’t actually like eating trout, my wife doesn’t like it either, and as such the kids have never tried it, therefore most of what I catch is released. I didn’t have the SLR camera set up, and didn’t really want to keep the trout stressed any longer, so I told the kids to come and touch him and see what he feels like, and then gently released him back to the river. He didn’t hang around either, a couple of flicks of his tail and he was gone into the depths again.

By now it was starting to get pretty fucking hot, the sun was bearing straight down on us and there was bugger all shelter about, so I decided we’d get in the car and head home the long way and grab an ice cream somewhere. We had two choices, go home the way we came, or go via Manapouri just for shits and giggles. Had nothing else to do that day, so Manapouri it was, basically it was a 3 hour trip home instead of 90 minutes, but with a new car you are entitled to trips like this aren’t you?

In Manapouri we dropped into Pearl Harbour – Yeah I’m not gonna bother explaining this for those that don’t know – and attempted to feed the giant trout (you aren’t allowed to fish for) some bread. The problem with this is that the ducks and seagulls tend to get at the bread before the trout do, but still they came up close enough to the surface for the kids to see some real monster trout. Then it was off home, by the time we got to the upper reaches of the Oreti the wind was getting up a bit, and the kids were getting cranky, so I didn’t bother stopping to do any fishing.

When I did get home though, my Mother was there so I asked her kindly if she could babysit tomorrow night so I could get some time at the river myself, she was fine with that, all was set for me to reaquaint myself with the most frequented fishing spot of my teenage years – Mataura River, Coal Pit Road, Wyndham.

Posted on

Out of work early … sahweeeet!

January 11, Oreti River, Wallacetown

The joys of working in the only internet cafe in Invercargill hit home this particular Monday night. With no customers in the store at 8pm (1 hour before normal close), and a clear sky with no wind outside, I figured to hell with sitting there on my own, I’m going fishing!

So I head home, wolf down dinner while loading the gear into the car, and head down to the Oreti river starting at the West Plains road bridge, no more than 10 minutes from my house. I get out of the car and notice the wind is up a bit, given that I am yet to use my “still” brand new Grey’s fly rod and Lamson reel ($1500 worth to my wife’s disgust), I’m not all that confident of being able to cast with this wind here, so I setup my son’s rod again, attach a small minnow, and start casting out into the currently high tide affected Oreti.

I get some good distance with this lure, it’s a bit heavier than the Thunderbug, casting distances of 40 meters or so. I give one cast a bit of shoulder and really let it go, quite pleased with myself I watch the lure fly across the river and land on the opposite bank … fat lot of use that cast was, but now I know if I ever need to cast a stupidly long distance I could do it. I walk across the bridge and pick up the lure and decide to head up to the Wallacetown bridge cause there is some shelter from the wind there, and I might actually get some time with the fly rod.

Just as I was hoping there is no wind on the beach, the bank on the other side is a good 5 meters straight up from the river, topped with willows, giving fantastic shelter for a born-again fly fisherman to try and get back into it. For those that don’t understand the fascination with fly-fishing, go watch A River Run’s Through It, that does a pretty decent job explaining why fly-fishing is such an alluring sport for some people, and I’m not sure I could adequately describe the allure myself.

The fly rod is setup, and a Mayfly imitation attached, and I start going through the motions in my head. Lift casting arm to vertical quickly, count to 3, send the line back to the river. While I visualise what my father taught me as a teenager, and what I last practised over 12 years ago, several fish started rising a few meters downstream of a submerged willow tree. I had a target within casting range, about 10 meters off the beach, I was fairly confident I could cast that with this flash new gear. So I began, feeding the line out, getting some distance, keeping myself upstream so I didn’t spook my prey while getting the required distance on the water. Then while watching the trout rising for fly’s downstream and still trying to get some distance out the line tightened, my heart skipped a beat, and I struck back at whatever greedy trout had taken my fly when I wasn’t looking. When I followed the floating line down to the water, I realised I had actually caught the submerged tree, I was so excited I didn’t noticed that my catch wasn’t fighting back at all. I gave it a firm tug, the line came free, and I reeled in to check the fly. I learned, when I found no fly on my line, that I should tie better knots, and I should also pay attention to my line all the time so I don’t catch trees, they aren’t much challenge really and I think I’d struggle to fit them in my net.

I attach another Mayfly imitation to the line, one of the older ones my father gave me years ago. Not cause I thought it would give me better casting or luck, but I didn’t want to lose another one of the new fly’s I had recently purchased. I got the knot right this time, tested it really well and couldn’t pull it apart by hand, I figured if I couldn’t do that then I would run into other issues with my rusty skills before a trout big enough could break that knot away.

Paying more attention to my casting this time, and less to the fish still rising just below me, I started getting things landing right. The line was landing softly on the water, the line was landing straight, there was enough light left that I could still see the fly as it followed the current through the target area. Then bang! I had a bite, I pulled on the rod, as I did that I pulled a 4 inch long trout right out of the water onto the beach beside me. A real monster, massive fight, a battle for the ages, and I had just been victorious over the demon of the denizen. I quickly got the hook out of the mouth of the beast, while retaining all my fingers, and allowed him his freedom out of respect to the battle he provided.

I stood there for a few moments, having a bit of a laugh to myself, the first fish I had caught on the fly in a dozen years was a monstrous 4 inches long, my wife would have been pleased with that, but I wanted something a little … bigger. I studied the river for a moment, and strained my eyes to see if I could find a trout with a little more substance to chase, but all I managed to see were a few more 4 to 6 inch trout feeding just behind the sunken willow. I figured it was time to go home anyway, dismantled the rod, and left the river with a strange feeling. Sure it was only 4 inches long, but I caught it on the fly, I was back in the game, and I was stoked!

Posted on

After 12 years I’m back

Well I am sitting here on a beautiful day here at home, wishing the sun wasn’t beating down upon us with such intensity so that I could take off to the river to chase some big brown trout in arguably some of the finest fly fishing rivers in the world. As is the want of keen fishermen, when you can’t go out there and do it, you sure as hell will talk about it, and that is why I have decided to start a “blog” type thread here to share my adventures, good and bad, successful or not. An insight into my nights on the banks of the local rivers here in Southland.

I’ll recount my nights thus far, starting with the New Years camping trip and getting us up-to-date so I can just add one night at a time when the memories are fresh.

December 30, Mavora lakes, Mararoa River

After a 90 minute drive from home into some of the most pristine high country in New Zealand. I set up the tent for my wife and the kids, went for a short walk up the lake shore, and just enjoyed the serenity of a nice calm night next to the unspoilt Lake Mavora. After dinner I decided to go and try out one of the new fishing rods I had purchased the day before, a $80 Kilwell/Shimano spin set which I had bought for the young fella. I wandered down the the Mararoa River which joins the two lakes, a crystal clear stretch of water with beech forest right to the banks. As such taking the brand spanking new Fly Rod wasn’t an option.

Now it has to be said that the waters of the Mararoa are crystal clear, as in regardless of the light conditions you can see the bottom of the river all the way down. Therefore sneaking up on the trout is just about a practice in futility as far as I’m concerned, although the hardcore fisherman will swear it’s the only way to catch them.

It also has to be said, I didn’t fancy my chances of catching anything at all, in fact I even went as far as promising a fish I didn’t think I’d catch to the nice American couple at the campsite next to ours. Mainly I just wanted to put my sons new rod through it’s paces and get the line worn in so it didn’t tangle as much when the boy came with me.

Nevertheless, I attached a yellow Thunderbug to the swivel, and proceeded to get my line wet. Third cast, tangle. Fifth cast, tangle. Ninth cast, tangle and swearing. Time to go for a walk. I decided that the mouth of the river from the lake was not a good place, probably due to the inordinate number of tangled lines, so I was to cross the river and follow it down the opposite bank for a bit and see what I could find. I had never been fishing here before so I had no idea where I was going, I think that just added to the excitement.

About 300m down from the swing bridge I found a nice grassy bank where it would seem the river floods occasionally. With no trees on this bank I was also tempted to go and get the fly rod, but I figured by the time I got back to the tent it would be far to dark to go back to the river. The river here is about 10 meters wide, and quite deep and fast flowing, I just knew there had to be a few hungry trout hiding down there. I started my chase above some rapids where the river splits in two for a short distance, after a couple of minutes another fisherman started attacking the other fork in the river. We briefly exchanged pleasantries – as you do when you meet a person of your ilk – and he quickly informed me that he caught a couple of nice rainbows the previous night when conditions were “better than they are tonight”. Well sir, thanks a fucking lot for dashing what little hope I had of living up to a seemingly empty promise. Nevermind, I was going to give this new rod a thrashing and that’s all there was to it now.

I started moving down the river, the fork on my side was shallow and fast, there was now way I could have kept the lure off the bottom without it being on top of the water, so I carried on down to where the river came together again. It was the type of rejoining that is written about in fishing books where some old pro (read: rich fella who doesn’t need to work anymore and can travel where ever he wants to go fishing) tells us normal folk the secrets of the 10% who always catch something (10% who have more time than the rest of us more like it). The shallow rapid flowing back into the deep channel, the trout are supposed to hide in the deeper part and gorge themselves on anything that comes over the edge from the shallow rapid. I was in the perfect spot to attack this area, I’d cast upstream and retrieve the lure back through the deep pool hopefully enticing a nice sized trout to dinner. After an hour of nothing at that spot I figured there was just nothing there, I hadn’t had a chase, nibble, bite, just nothing.

Again I headed downstream, this time to the end of the grassy bank where a small backflow cuts you off from the beech forest. I figured I’d start here, and fish my way back upstream as far as I could before calling it a night. So I started sending the Thunderbug back out into the crystal waters of the Mararoa to test the rod and reel out, I could cast pretty much straight downstream with the breeze behind me, and retrieve straight back into the current putting a decent amount of strain on the line. To be honest, I had no idea if this workout was doing anything, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. A couple more then I’ll start moving back up stream, and then it all happened.

A flash of silver, a tug on the line, a strike from myself, and there he rose … well jumped like a fish with a hook in his mouth to be more precise. I then realised that the drag on the reel was almost non-existent and the trout was going where ever he wanted without expending any energy, so I tightened that up until the line started to feel some weight. I dropped my fishing bag and net behind me, this will end up being a dumb idea later, but at the time freed me up to get through the tussocks if needed. Then the fight was on. He would dive deep, and I would wait, I would reel him in while he got some energy back, and then he would dive deep again. All I could think about was “I hope I’m remembering this right”. It had been about 12 years since I last caught a trout. Fortunately the trout on the end of the line must have been hungry, cause he was well and truly hooked, this most likely saved me from loosing him. So after about 3 minutes I have him close enough to the bank to net him, this is where the dumb idea hits me, I’m now about 10 meters from the net, I figure if I keep the line tight I can guide him downstream back to the net. So that’s what I do, unfortunately as soon as his head faces downstream hes off again, ahhh fuck it, I’ll let him go and, keep him on the line, and get back to the net and bring him in again. Fortunately, when I start bringing him in now I have the net he doesn’t have as much fight left in him and I pretty much just bring him straight up to the bank, and on about the sixth attempt, I get him in the net. I have just caught my first fish in a dozen years in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and to add to the grandeur of the whole scene, the trout is a legal 3 pound rainbow!

Mararoa Rainbow