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!