Saturday 16 November
We left Sydney about 6.30pm and arrived in Christchurch at 11.30pm (local time). We got a late flight so that David Claxton (hereinafter referred to as the honourable “Clacko”) could take full advantage of his frequent flier points. We stayed at the Windsor bread and breakfast, sorry that should be Bed and Breakfast, easy mistake to make. I think that the Freudian slip can be blamed on the quality/quantity of the breakfast that we received. It was edible however. Mental note to self – don’t go back, room small, no toilet in room, breakfast small and Clacko snores.
Actually to say that Clacko snores is like saying that Beethoven wrote a bit of music. Both statements are true but they do no justice in describing the mastery that both men have brought to their respective crafts. [1]
Sunday 17 November
Christchurch 7.12 am – temperature 6 degrees, sleet and rain. We had breakfast, not that the food had done much in breaking my fast and then we walked to pick up the car. The car yard was a couple of kilometres from the B&B, we were both a bit cold but not too wet by the time we arrived. It was awesome to be greeted with a “ you should have given us a call and we would’ve come and picked you up from the hotel”
Further mental note – *@#@ ***, loosely translated that means “If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all”, coupled with a “don’t let Clacko organise anything”.
I should explain that I had promised my mother to practice the local language as often as I could. The statement, “if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all” is a Kiwi saying taught to me by my lovely mother and while it is not quite on the coat of arms of the Main Family, it would be if there was enough room. My mother is a “Main” by birth, a family that established itself in the North Island of New Zealand in the 1860’s. Being the country of my mother’s birth I thought that I would at least make some efforts to live up to my promise to my mother. So here I was, day 1, before lunch and I had already used one phrase. Things were looking up. Not to bother you with too many notes but I should also point out that my father is an Arab by birth and fly fishing opportunities in his homeland are somewhat limited, hence the decision to come to New Zealand.
The walk to the car yard was a good way to get some exercise and get our circulation going though, especially given that we were about to spend a day driving.
We drove back to the B&B picked up our gear, had a brief stop at a supermarket (yes… I was hungry ) and then we left Christchurch on highway 1 (see map) and then transferred to highway 8 stopping near Omarama to have a look at the Ahuriri River.
The river was flowing fast and silty so we after going for a bit of a walk upstream we decided to keep on driving. So back in the car and off we went down through the Lindis Pass towards Cromwell. Clacko and I stopped on the way before we got Crowmell. I had a fish for an hour in the Lindis River which Clacko got on video for future prosperity. I had no luck but it was good to try out all the new tackle that I had brought along ( Simms waders and wading boots, a new reel and a new rod! I had made a mental note not to fish with my wallet in my pocket as if I fell over the weight of the debts on the credit card would surely drag me under.) I was very happy to have the waders on as it started to snow while I was fishing, but yours truly was very comfortable in his new fishing gear. These are the first set of decent waders that I have ever bought, and after fishing in cold and uncomfortable temperatures they turned out to be one of the best fly fishing “investments” I have made.
We hopped back in the car and drove to Cromwell where we had dinner. I had a lasagne and salad, Clacko had 3 kebabs and chips, the food was good and the prices reasonable.
We then did the evening dash heading to the Mataura River below Athol. We travelled on highway 6 down to Queenstown and round the shores of Lake Wanaka. The scenery down through and around Queenstown was spectacular, with very steep hills coming right down to the road. As we drove Clacko talked me through his fly fishing lodge that he would open up if he was young and single, (glad he isn’t otherwise I would have had to pay him to take me fishing).
Below Athol we turned off and paralleled the Mataura Rv up the Nokomai Station road. We stopped on a little rise overlooking the river and saw a nice fish from about 50 metres. So rigged up and had a cast, but didn’t get the fly in front of the fish so no luck. It was about 8.30pm at night and still light enough to fish.
We went up the road a bit and camped the night in our swags under some willow trees. It drizzled all night but the swag performed well and we both stayed nice and dry. Got to sleep about 12am after listening to Mr Claxton’s fifth in B Major. He needs to work on holding his notes longer.
[1] For any person wondering I will, of course, as a matter of honour, let Mr Claxton have the right to reply in relation to all statements made in this commentary. I probably won’t publish anything he has to say, but that’s immaterial.
We left Sydney about 6.30pm and arrived in Christchurch at 11.30pm (local time). We got a late flight so that David Claxton (hereinafter referred to as the honourable “Clacko”) could take full advantage of his frequent flier points. We stayed at the Windsor bread and breakfast, sorry that should be Bed and Breakfast, easy mistake to make. I think that the Freudian slip can be blamed on the quality/quantity of the breakfast that we received. It was edible however. Mental note to self – don’t go back, room small, no toilet in room, breakfast small and Clacko snores.
Actually to say that Clacko snores is like saying that Beethoven wrote a bit of music. Both statements are true but they do no justice in describing the mastery that both men have brought to their respective crafts. [1]
Sunday 17 November
Christchurch 7.12 am – temperature 6 degrees, sleet and rain. We had breakfast, not that the food had done much in breaking my fast and then we walked to pick up the car. The car yard was a couple of kilometres from the B&B, we were both a bit cold but not too wet by the time we arrived. It was awesome to be greeted with a “ you should have given us a call and we would’ve come and picked you up from the hotel”
Further mental note – *@#@ ***, loosely translated that means “If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all”, coupled with a “don’t let Clacko organise anything”.
I should explain that I had promised my mother to practice the local language as often as I could. The statement, “if you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all” is a Kiwi saying taught to me by my lovely mother and while it is not quite on the coat of arms of the Main Family, it would be if there was enough room. My mother is a “Main” by birth, a family that established itself in the North Island of New Zealand in the 1860’s. Being the country of my mother’s birth I thought that I would at least make some efforts to live up to my promise to my mother. So here I was, day 1, before lunch and I had already used one phrase. Things were looking up. Not to bother you with too many notes but I should also point out that my father is an Arab by birth and fly fishing opportunities in his homeland are somewhat limited, hence the decision to come to New Zealand.
The walk to the car yard was a good way to get some exercise and get our circulation going though, especially given that we were about to spend a day driving.
We drove back to the B&B picked up our gear, had a brief stop at a supermarket (yes… I was hungry ) and then we left Christchurch on highway 1 (see map) and then transferred to highway 8 stopping near Omarama to have a look at the Ahuriri River.
The river was flowing fast and silty so we after going for a bit of a walk upstream we decided to keep on driving. So back in the car and off we went down through the Lindis Pass towards Cromwell. Clacko and I stopped on the way before we got Crowmell. I had a fish for an hour in the Lindis River which Clacko got on video for future prosperity. I had no luck but it was good to try out all the new tackle that I had brought along ( Simms waders and wading boots, a new reel and a new rod! I had made a mental note not to fish with my wallet in my pocket as if I fell over the weight of the debts on the credit card would surely drag me under.) I was very happy to have the waders on as it started to snow while I was fishing, but yours truly was very comfortable in his new fishing gear. These are the first set of decent waders that I have ever bought, and after fishing in cold and uncomfortable temperatures they turned out to be one of the best fly fishing “investments” I have made.
We hopped back in the car and drove to Cromwell where we had dinner. I had a lasagne and salad, Clacko had 3 kebabs and chips, the food was good and the prices reasonable.
We then did the evening dash heading to the Mataura River below Athol. We travelled on highway 6 down to Queenstown and round the shores of Lake Wanaka. The scenery down through and around Queenstown was spectacular, with very steep hills coming right down to the road. As we drove Clacko talked me through his fly fishing lodge that he would open up if he was young and single, (glad he isn’t otherwise I would have had to pay him to take me fishing).
Below Athol we turned off and paralleled the Mataura Rv up the Nokomai Station road. We stopped on a little rise overlooking the river and saw a nice fish from about 50 metres. So rigged up and had a cast, but didn’t get the fly in front of the fish so no luck. It was about 8.30pm at night and still light enough to fish.
We went up the road a bit and camped the night in our swags under some willow trees. It drizzled all night but the swag performed well and we both stayed nice and dry. Got to sleep about 12am after listening to Mr Claxton’s fifth in B Major. He needs to work on holding his notes longer.
[1] For any person wondering I will, of course, as a matter of honour, let Mr Claxton have the right to reply in relation to all statements made in this commentary. I probably won’t publish anything he has to say, but that’s immaterial.
Monday 18 November
Packed up after a coffee and drove to Athol. We then had a chat to Len Prentice who owns a fly fishing shop in town. On his advice and Clacko’s recommendation, as he had been there the previous year, we decided to head over to the Eglinton River. The Eglinton is located in an absolutely wonderful valley north of Te Anua on the way to Milford Sound. On the way we saw our first patch of blue sky since landing in NZ.
We had brunch at Te Anau (you like that …“brunch”…any excuse for a feed) at about 11.30 of a burger and chips each. We then headed up the valley paralleling the Eglinton River and stopped at a camp ground on the way called Deer Flat. The camp ground is about 400m just north of the 45 degree southern parallel. The scenery here is some of the most magnificent anywhere in the world. There is a flat valley floor rising up to snow capped peaks on all sides of us. We parked right by the river and strapped on our waders and headed off up river for a fish. Clacko new that I was keen for a fish because there was no mention of a quick feed before we went.
As we walked up the river Clacko was out front and spotted a nice fish which he generously said for me to have a go at trying to catch. (Had I been out front, seen the fish and known that Clacko was 15 metres behind me I probably would have sent him past me up the river to look at that nice piece of water about 150m away that surely held six or seven fish of 5 pounds or more.)
I hopped in the water about 15m down stream of the fish and waded/stalked a little closer. Two casts later I had my fist NZ brown trout. Was I excited! It went slightly over 3 lbs and was caught on a size 14 bead head pheasant tail nymph tied by yours truly. Clacko did all the work on the video camera so we have some nice footage of playing the trout. (It looks great on video… now if I could just dub over my broad Aussie accent.)
We then fished up stream for about another 3 ½ hours where I saw some of the biggest fish I had ever seen. Put Clacko onto a huge monster of a thing but it spooked and meandered down stream.
We had no more luck (in fact the Eglinton in November was going to prove quite a handful!) even though we saw about 15 more good fish. The water was flowing quite hard consequentially it was hard to get the light fly down deep enough to the fish.
The weather was bright and sunny with little or no wind and only a handful of intermittent clouds. We arrived back at camp down river at about 4.45pm, had a couple of sandwiches, a drink and a wash with some water that we had heated up.
Tuesday 19 November
Clacko was up at sparrows fart ( that’s Australian for “early”, my Kiwi language assimilation classes that I had referred to were harder than I thought) and made himself useful by cleaning up the dishes from last nights Indian chicken feed, which was sensational. Clacko had done the honours in cooking that feed up ( I knew there was more than 1 reason why I brought him along). At 6.10 am it was 0.6 degrees C , needless to say, a bit nippy for a boy acclimatised to Sydney weather.
The sunrise at Deer flat was gorgeous, watching the sun break through the early morning mist and shine on the snow capped mountains. Clacko took some video footage of the early morning sunrise, actually he shot a whole tape or 2 hours worth. But it has some nice moments in it.
The camp ground had everything that you could need, except hot water, showers, a tap and a gas oven, but we were there to fish not live in luxury and the 2 key ingredients were on hand, a toilet and a fire place with cook top.
We fished the Eglinton again, as it was convenient… 13 metres from my swag. But again had no real luck. We saw some huge fish but they were sitting down deep, at a depth of about 20-30 feet in some of the big holes, and we simply couldn’t get a fly to them what with the current of the river as strong as it was.
After lunch we drove about 10kms down the road from Deer Flat and had a fish there. I told Clacko that I was finding the fishing tough and not having much luck. At which point Clacko made some facetious comment that you can’t expect to catch fish if you are asleep on the bank. So I took his statement on board and stored that advice away for future fishing reference. Mental note to self – if you sleep within 5 metres of a “chainsaw” that runs all night, don’t expect to be terribly productive the next day on the river.
At about 4.30pm we drove down towards Te Anau to check out the Upokeroa River. It is a tannin coloured stream similar to what you would find in Australia. We parked the car on a high bank over looking the stream. We both saw a fish rising behind a boulder right in front of us (albeit about 6m below our position.) Clacko assembled his rod and stalked down into a good casting spot. He cast a little red tag dry fly (which DC had tied himself) out over the boulder and it landed right in front of the fish, which promptly came up and took it. I watched all this from above a took a nice photo of the event. Unfortunately the fly came out of the trout’s mouth after a brief fight of about 10 seconds.
So a board meeting was held and it was decided to go into Te Anau and have a feed (in terms of getting such a decision passed or ratified by other members of the board, it helps if you are the Chairman and have the deciding vote… plus I had the car keys.)
We sat outside one of the cafes (alright it was a dodgy takeaway joint) and had a pie each (and 2 pieces of fried chicken, 600mls of coke, an energy drink, ½ a plate of wedges and a 2 scoop ice cream if your name is David Claxton). I have kept the evidence of this feed in case anyone wants to challenge the veracity of my statements, partly because I couldn’t believe it myself, as I’m the guts on any fishing trip, and partly so that I have a bench mark of what to aspire to in terms of gorging perfection.
Headed back to deer flat at about 7.30pm, Clacko didn’t feel like dinner (he’s got no ticker that boy) so I had to cook something myself. (Started to wonder why I had brought Clacko along).
Photos up to and including 20 November can be viewed by clicking here:
Wednesday 20 November
We were going to break camp today and move to a river that might have not been as scenic, but would’ve been more productive in numbers of trout caught. If I consult my diary in relation to the entry I made on this day it reads as follows “we decided the night before to move camp to a different river because this bloody mongrel (another good “Main” phrase) of a river is hard to fish when the water is flowing and the fish aren’t rising to dry flies. Its really starting to give me the s**ts. Thank goodness for editing.
So we fished the Eglinton above our camp ground for a few hours in the morning. We saw some huge fish but had no luck, once again.
We then went back to camp and packed everything up and were out of there by 12.30pm, destination the upper Oreti river.
We drove (read rallied ) to the upper Oreti which is just south of Mavora Lakes. We went down to the river through an angler’s access point that was pointed out to us by a bloke called Mal who was fixing his fence at the time. Who, coincidentally, we had stopped to talk to, to seek permission if he would let us drive through his property to the river. Maybe Clacko should have seen the angler’s access sign, but it was inappropriately placed, 2 metres off the road at eye level, and as anyone who’s been driving with Clacko knows, he treats viewing the road as an afterthought. (Not casting any aspersions Mr Claxton…. Just watch the damn road.) In the old boy’s defence though, it’s a bit hard to spot good looking fishing spots if you are charged with the mundane task of watching where you are driving.
Where was my input in spotting the sign I hear you ask, well as usual when Clacko drives on dirt, I was asleep. (Well at least pretending to be, as the only way to survive a bout of “Clacko on dirt” is to grip the side of the seat with the hand that is not in view of the driver, and close your eyes. Like a wild animal, the driver can sense fear, hence the need to keep the hand gripping the seat well concealed).
The river was flowing well, once again we spotted some good fish, but no luck. I know that we both spooked some fish by walking too casually up the bank in some places, but you live and learn. I had spent about 1 hour in one spot behind a big rock trying to put a fly in front of one of the large trout that I had spotted, but didn’t manage to have any luck.
So in disgust (Simey’s motivation for buying new waders, a new rod, new reel and new wading boots was being severely questioned by himself) we headed off up the road to Mavora Lakes.
We parked right by the lake and wandered down to fish the area where the river flows into the lake. For this I took out my 7 weight rod (all other fishing had been done with a 4 weight) put on a sink tip line and waded out into the water. To sum things up I didn’t catch any fish but had 3 powerful takes and broke my fly off in the mouth of one that hit like derailed freight train, Simey trying to get to the fridge at 3am. My motivation was returning. Clacko had no luck either but spent some good time stalking a few fish in the shallows.
We drove back to Lumsden where we camped in the camp ground and had the luxury of a warm shower (the first in New Zealand) a place to cook and an indoor bench and table to sit at.
Progressive Tally – Fish 1
Motivation – 3.5/10 and rising.
Thursday 21 November
Ah the 21st of November. A crappy day weather wise, it was cold and raining, and the motivation was a bit like the weather, as it was day 4 of “Clacky and Simey’s Trophy Trout trip to the South Island” and the score was only 1.
I had a small glimmer of hope of catching fish today as my experience has shown that trout feed quite actively when its drizzling.
After breakfast we drove north from Lumsden and took the Nokomai station road to the Mataura River. We passed the spot where we had camped on the first night, which brought back and instant pain in the neck. We drove over the Mataura 2 times and then Clacko dropped me off near the 3rd bridge. I was going to meet him up the road, as he was “going to go slowly and fish every pool”.
Clacko on the Mataura – this is a highly prized rare photo of Clacko actually fishing. Well there is line in the water, but no fly. You have to start somewhere I suppose.
Now for all those that have never had the pleasure of fishing with Mr Claxton they would know that he is a prodigious walker and is a self confessed fish spotter, as opposed to fisherman, your words Clacko not mine. So when Clacko mentioned that he was going to go slowly and fish every pool, alarm bells should have been going off in my head. So I rigged up my rod and left old Mr David “I only have a good day if I walk 300km and see 1 million fish, irrespective of how many I catch” Claxton[1]
So I said good bye and wished him well. Now you would have thought that I, knowing the propensity Mr Claxton has to walk, and walk, and walk (and see fish mind you), that I would have relieved him of 2 key components of the back pack that he had with him, namely the camera, kindly on loan from my brother Nick, and some food.
Now as it transpires the food I could have lived without, but the camera, oh the camera, I will be kicking myself about that one for the next 4 years I’m sure.
Why I hear you ask…. well it goes something like this…. . I started fishing a little back water and had 2 takes, both times when I tried to set the hook it didn’t stick in the trouts’ jaw, disappointing but encouraging at the same time, given the amount of action we had seen to date. I then moved onto some fast riffly water and got a take and set the hook…. on an absolute bloody monster! Well at least that’s how it felt. The thing took off downstream at speed, taking about 15 metres of fly line with it and then leapt a good 3 feet out of the water, that’s when I caught sight of the blue whale that I had hooked. Ok, it wasn’t quite that big but it was by far the biggest trout I had ever had on the line.
It took 15 minutes to land the biggest fish of my life, the scales that I had with me in my vest gave its weight at just over 7 lbs! I have marked its width in my diary, as being my hand width plus one finger and it was 3 finger widths past the first guide in my rod in length. Yep, you have to admire the French method of metric measurement. (For all those with different hand widths than mine and who don’t own a Loomis fly rod - width was about 15cm and length about 50cm).
The Matuara near the 3rd bridge on the Nokomai station road, with a 2lbs trout caught that evening in the same spot as the Big One caught earlier in the day.
There was no question about killing him, just wished I had a camera to record the moment for prosperity. Anyway, after the obligatory measurements (mentioned above) I let him go.
I then caught another 2lbs rainbow out of the same run about 20 minutes later. It had taken me about 3 hours to move about 200 metres upstream, by that time Clacko had been sighted somewhere near Invercargill (which was understandable as it was only about 80km away.)
I reached the rendezvous point, or where I thought we had agreed to meet, but there was no car there. So I decided to continue fishing upstream until the phantom car re-appeared. About 30min later I saw the car pulling laps up and down the road. So I reeled in and walked through the paddock over to meet Clacko.
Clacko wanted to go and have a shower and warm up, seems he’d had enough fishing for one day, it was 2pm and still raining. It turns out that Clacko had fished some slower back waters as well and had hooked 2 but wasn’t quite able to get them in the net. In fact, Clacko had gone into the water to free one that had got caught up in a log jam ( read .. to grab it to prove that he was a fisherman and not a man wandering around some paddocks with a fetish for gortex) but he failed to reach it. In the process he took in some water and got a bit wet. I know how that feels after falling feet first into a snow covered lake in Tasmania in winter and watching the water go over your head.
We drove back to the camp ground in Lumsden, we both had a shower and a feed. Afterwards, I went back out fishing after dropping Clacko in town. I was back on the water by 4.30pm. I caught one more, a rainbow of about 2lbs (photo above), which I took a photo of, as I now had the camera with me, and some food, and saw plenty of action in the back waters.
I got back to camp about 8pm to see Mr Claxton stumbling up the road, he looked weary and a bit sore as he was not moving smoothly. It turned out that the poor fella was a bit crook, but 8 schooners in 3 hours will do that to you. So my slightly inebriated fishing companion took me to the Mayfly Café for dinner. We had met two nice girls at the camp ground in the afternoon, Emma a kiwi from Nelson, and Genevieve an Aussie doctor from Melbourne. They joined us at the café and then over at the bar for a few more drinks and some pool.
Packed up after a coffee and drove to Athol. We then had a chat to Len Prentice who owns a fly fishing shop in town. On his advice and Clacko’s recommendation, as he had been there the previous year, we decided to head over to the Eglinton River. The Eglinton is located in an absolutely wonderful valley north of Te Anua on the way to Milford Sound. On the way we saw our first patch of blue sky since landing in NZ.
We had brunch at Te Anau (you like that …“brunch”…any excuse for a feed) at about 11.30 of a burger and chips each. We then headed up the valley paralleling the Eglinton River and stopped at a camp ground on the way called Deer Flat. The camp ground is about 400m just north of the 45 degree southern parallel. The scenery here is some of the most magnificent anywhere in the world. There is a flat valley floor rising up to snow capped peaks on all sides of us. We parked right by the river and strapped on our waders and headed off up river for a fish. Clacko new that I was keen for a fish because there was no mention of a quick feed before we went.
As we walked up the river Clacko was out front and spotted a nice fish which he generously said for me to have a go at trying to catch. (Had I been out front, seen the fish and known that Clacko was 15 metres behind me I probably would have sent him past me up the river to look at that nice piece of water about 150m away that surely held six or seven fish of 5 pounds or more.)
I hopped in the water about 15m down stream of the fish and waded/stalked a little closer. Two casts later I had my fist NZ brown trout. Was I excited! It went slightly over 3 lbs and was caught on a size 14 bead head pheasant tail nymph tied by yours truly. Clacko did all the work on the video camera so we have some nice footage of playing the trout. (It looks great on video… now if I could just dub over my broad Aussie accent.)
We then fished up stream for about another 3 ½ hours where I saw some of the biggest fish I had ever seen. Put Clacko onto a huge monster of a thing but it spooked and meandered down stream.
We had no more luck (in fact the Eglinton in November was going to prove quite a handful!) even though we saw about 15 more good fish. The water was flowing quite hard consequentially it was hard to get the light fly down deep enough to the fish.
The weather was bright and sunny with little or no wind and only a handful of intermittent clouds. We arrived back at camp down river at about 4.45pm, had a couple of sandwiches, a drink and a wash with some water that we had heated up.
Tuesday 19 November
Clacko was up at sparrows fart ( that’s Australian for “early”, my Kiwi language assimilation classes that I had referred to were harder than I thought) and made himself useful by cleaning up the dishes from last nights Indian chicken feed, which was sensational. Clacko had done the honours in cooking that feed up ( I knew there was more than 1 reason why I brought him along). At 6.10 am it was 0.6 degrees C , needless to say, a bit nippy for a boy acclimatised to Sydney weather.
The sunrise at Deer flat was gorgeous, watching the sun break through the early morning mist and shine on the snow capped mountains. Clacko took some video footage of the early morning sunrise, actually he shot a whole tape or 2 hours worth. But it has some nice moments in it.
The camp ground had everything that you could need, except hot water, showers, a tap and a gas oven, but we were there to fish not live in luxury and the 2 key ingredients were on hand, a toilet and a fire place with cook top.
We fished the Eglinton again, as it was convenient… 13 metres from my swag. But again had no real luck. We saw some huge fish but they were sitting down deep, at a depth of about 20-30 feet in some of the big holes, and we simply couldn’t get a fly to them what with the current of the river as strong as it was.
After lunch we drove about 10kms down the road from Deer Flat and had a fish there. I told Clacko that I was finding the fishing tough and not having much luck. At which point Clacko made some facetious comment that you can’t expect to catch fish if you are asleep on the bank. So I took his statement on board and stored that advice away for future fishing reference. Mental note to self – if you sleep within 5 metres of a “chainsaw” that runs all night, don’t expect to be terribly productive the next day on the river.
At about 4.30pm we drove down towards Te Anau to check out the Upokeroa River. It is a tannin coloured stream similar to what you would find in Australia. We parked the car on a high bank over looking the stream. We both saw a fish rising behind a boulder right in front of us (albeit about 6m below our position.) Clacko assembled his rod and stalked down into a good casting spot. He cast a little red tag dry fly (which DC had tied himself) out over the boulder and it landed right in front of the fish, which promptly came up and took it. I watched all this from above a took a nice photo of the event. Unfortunately the fly came out of the trout’s mouth after a brief fight of about 10 seconds.
So a board meeting was held and it was decided to go into Te Anau and have a feed (in terms of getting such a decision passed or ratified by other members of the board, it helps if you are the Chairman and have the deciding vote… plus I had the car keys.)
We sat outside one of the cafes (alright it was a dodgy takeaway joint) and had a pie each (and 2 pieces of fried chicken, 600mls of coke, an energy drink, ½ a plate of wedges and a 2 scoop ice cream if your name is David Claxton). I have kept the evidence of this feed in case anyone wants to challenge the veracity of my statements, partly because I couldn’t believe it myself, as I’m the guts on any fishing trip, and partly so that I have a bench mark of what to aspire to in terms of gorging perfection.
Headed back to deer flat at about 7.30pm, Clacko didn’t feel like dinner (he’s got no ticker that boy) so I had to cook something myself. (Started to wonder why I had brought Clacko along).
Photos up to and including 20 November can be viewed by clicking here:
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| NZ Nov 02 Part 1 |
Wednesday 20 November
We were going to break camp today and move to a river that might have not been as scenic, but would’ve been more productive in numbers of trout caught. If I consult my diary in relation to the entry I made on this day it reads as follows “we decided the night before to move camp to a different river because this bloody mongrel (another good “Main” phrase) of a river is hard to fish when the water is flowing and the fish aren’t rising to dry flies. Its really starting to give me the s**ts. Thank goodness for editing.
So we fished the Eglinton above our camp ground for a few hours in the morning. We saw some huge fish but had no luck, once again.
We then went back to camp and packed everything up and were out of there by 12.30pm, destination the upper Oreti river.
We drove (read rallied ) to the upper Oreti which is just south of Mavora Lakes. We went down to the river through an angler’s access point that was pointed out to us by a bloke called Mal who was fixing his fence at the time. Who, coincidentally, we had stopped to talk to, to seek permission if he would let us drive through his property to the river. Maybe Clacko should have seen the angler’s access sign, but it was inappropriately placed, 2 metres off the road at eye level, and as anyone who’s been driving with Clacko knows, he treats viewing the road as an afterthought. (Not casting any aspersions Mr Claxton…. Just watch the damn road.) In the old boy’s defence though, it’s a bit hard to spot good looking fishing spots if you are charged with the mundane task of watching where you are driving.
Where was my input in spotting the sign I hear you ask, well as usual when Clacko drives on dirt, I was asleep. (Well at least pretending to be, as the only way to survive a bout of “Clacko on dirt” is to grip the side of the seat with the hand that is not in view of the driver, and close your eyes. Like a wild animal, the driver can sense fear, hence the need to keep the hand gripping the seat well concealed).
The river was flowing well, once again we spotted some good fish, but no luck. I know that we both spooked some fish by walking too casually up the bank in some places, but you live and learn. I had spent about 1 hour in one spot behind a big rock trying to put a fly in front of one of the large trout that I had spotted, but didn’t manage to have any luck.
So in disgust (Simey’s motivation for buying new waders, a new rod, new reel and new wading boots was being severely questioned by himself) we headed off up the road to Mavora Lakes.
We parked right by the lake and wandered down to fish the area where the river flows into the lake. For this I took out my 7 weight rod (all other fishing had been done with a 4 weight) put on a sink tip line and waded out into the water. To sum things up I didn’t catch any fish but had 3 powerful takes and broke my fly off in the mouth of one that hit like derailed freight train, Simey trying to get to the fridge at 3am. My motivation was returning. Clacko had no luck either but spent some good time stalking a few fish in the shallows.
We drove back to Lumsden where we camped in the camp ground and had the luxury of a warm shower (the first in New Zealand) a place to cook and an indoor bench and table to sit at.
Progressive Tally – Fish 1
Motivation – 3.5/10 and rising.
Thursday 21 November
Ah the 21st of November. A crappy day weather wise, it was cold and raining, and the motivation was a bit like the weather, as it was day 4 of “Clacky and Simey’s Trophy Trout trip to the South Island” and the score was only 1.
I had a small glimmer of hope of catching fish today as my experience has shown that trout feed quite actively when its drizzling.
After breakfast we drove north from Lumsden and took the Nokomai station road to the Mataura River. We passed the spot where we had camped on the first night, which brought back and instant pain in the neck. We drove over the Mataura 2 times and then Clacko dropped me off near the 3rd bridge. I was going to meet him up the road, as he was “going to go slowly and fish every pool”.
Clacko on the Mataura – this is a highly prized rare photo of Clacko actually fishing. Well there is line in the water, but no fly. You have to start somewhere I suppose.
Now for all those that have never had the pleasure of fishing with Mr Claxton they would know that he is a prodigious walker and is a self confessed fish spotter, as opposed to fisherman, your words Clacko not mine. So when Clacko mentioned that he was going to go slowly and fish every pool, alarm bells should have been going off in my head. So I rigged up my rod and left old Mr David “I only have a good day if I walk 300km and see 1 million fish, irrespective of how many I catch” Claxton[1]
So I said good bye and wished him well. Now you would have thought that I, knowing the propensity Mr Claxton has to walk, and walk, and walk (and see fish mind you), that I would have relieved him of 2 key components of the back pack that he had with him, namely the camera, kindly on loan from my brother Nick, and some food.
Now as it transpires the food I could have lived without, but the camera, oh the camera, I will be kicking myself about that one for the next 4 years I’m sure.
Why I hear you ask…. well it goes something like this…. . I started fishing a little back water and had 2 takes, both times when I tried to set the hook it didn’t stick in the trouts’ jaw, disappointing but encouraging at the same time, given the amount of action we had seen to date. I then moved onto some fast riffly water and got a take and set the hook…. on an absolute bloody monster! Well at least that’s how it felt. The thing took off downstream at speed, taking about 15 metres of fly line with it and then leapt a good 3 feet out of the water, that’s when I caught sight of the blue whale that I had hooked. Ok, it wasn’t quite that big but it was by far the biggest trout I had ever had on the line.
It took 15 minutes to land the biggest fish of my life, the scales that I had with me in my vest gave its weight at just over 7 lbs! I have marked its width in my diary, as being my hand width plus one finger and it was 3 finger widths past the first guide in my rod in length. Yep, you have to admire the French method of metric measurement. (For all those with different hand widths than mine and who don’t own a Loomis fly rod - width was about 15cm and length about 50cm).
The Matuara near the 3rd bridge on the Nokomai station road, with a 2lbs trout caught that evening in the same spot as the Big One caught earlier in the day.
There was no question about killing him, just wished I had a camera to record the moment for prosperity. Anyway, after the obligatory measurements (mentioned above) I let him go.
I then caught another 2lbs rainbow out of the same run about 20 minutes later. It had taken me about 3 hours to move about 200 metres upstream, by that time Clacko had been sighted somewhere near Invercargill (which was understandable as it was only about 80km away.)
I reached the rendezvous point, or where I thought we had agreed to meet, but there was no car there. So I decided to continue fishing upstream until the phantom car re-appeared. About 30min later I saw the car pulling laps up and down the road. So I reeled in and walked through the paddock over to meet Clacko.
Clacko wanted to go and have a shower and warm up, seems he’d had enough fishing for one day, it was 2pm and still raining. It turns out that Clacko had fished some slower back waters as well and had hooked 2 but wasn’t quite able to get them in the net. In fact, Clacko had gone into the water to free one that had got caught up in a log jam ( read .. to grab it to prove that he was a fisherman and not a man wandering around some paddocks with a fetish for gortex) but he failed to reach it. In the process he took in some water and got a bit wet. I know how that feels after falling feet first into a snow covered lake in Tasmania in winter and watching the water go over your head.
We drove back to the camp ground in Lumsden, we both had a shower and a feed. Afterwards, I went back out fishing after dropping Clacko in town. I was back on the water by 4.30pm. I caught one more, a rainbow of about 2lbs (photo above), which I took a photo of, as I now had the camera with me, and some food, and saw plenty of action in the back waters.
I got back to camp about 8pm to see Mr Claxton stumbling up the road, he looked weary and a bit sore as he was not moving smoothly. It turned out that the poor fella was a bit crook, but 8 schooners in 3 hours will do that to you. So my slightly inebriated fishing companion took me to the Mayfly Café for dinner. We had met two nice girls at the camp ground in the afternoon, Emma a kiwi from Nelson, and Genevieve an Aussie doctor from Melbourne. They joined us at the café and then over at the bar for a few more drinks and some pool.
Stumbled home about 12am – Happy 30th birthday Simey. It was a GOOD Day all in all.
Photos up to and including November 23
Friday 22 November
Late start as were we both a bit slow in getting out of bed. We went and fished the Mataura in the same spot as the day before. Clacko caught a nice 3lbs brown in an eddy off the main stream. It took a bit of landing, actually I was doing the honours on the net and I couldn’t get the trout in – took me about 26 swipes! Clacko had him on for about 15 minutes. I managed to get some nice video footage, you will see below a photo of the successful angler – well done Clacko!
After we had taken the obligatory photos and some footage with the video camera we walked up stream. I found a steep bank with some slow water and cast a nymph in and waited for it to sink. I then giggled it up and down a few times by simply lifting the rod so the nymph came up and then lowering it again so it could sink. So while I am doing that Clacko walks past and seeing the up and down action with the rod asks if I have caught one. AN without a word of a lie between the time he asked that and before I could answer a fish took the nymph! So I casually said “yeah I think so”. It went slightly over 3lbs, a tiddler by New Zealand standards but I haven’t caught many bigger in Australia.
While DC went back to the car I fished some more and hooked another one in some very shallow water, close in to the shore amongst some timber. As there were so many branches around I didn’t give the fish any room to play and it snapped me off.
Saturday 23 November
We drove to the upper Oreti just past Mavora Lakes. We parked at the bridge where we had stopped to have a look at the river and we had promptly seen a large brown trout feeding. By “large” I mean 6lbs plus, more likely closer to 8lbs. Despite Clacko’s best efforts to put me on the fish, by giving me directions from the bridge above the stream I was unable to tempt him with a fly. In all honesty I don’t think that my fly got anywhere near him so that he never had the opportunity to even have a look at the fly, even though at one stage he did come up to have a look at the strike indicator!
We then walked upstream about 400m where I saw another large fish of about 8lbs. In between the fish and I was a fence that crossed the river. Three casts over the fence with a dry fly were met with no result. I was also getting concerned that I was tempting fate and that any minute I might get a snag, so better stop mucking around I thought and have a real go. So pulled the line in and sat down and tied on a size 16 grey nymph that I had tied back at the camp ground that morning. One more cast out over the fence and onto the water. I watched the fish come over about 6 inches and sip in the fly and it was on!
This trout was enormous, easily the biggest one of the trip that I had caught or hooked. I played him for about 5 minutes at one point handing my rod over the fence to Clacko so that I could get in the water upstream from the fence and play the fish. After a little while the trout went hard up against the bank, no problems usually but this time the line got wrapped around a small branch. Cutting to the chase, I go snapped off! I was not amused, as the video testifies.
Later that afternoon Clacko also hooked a nice fish, which I unfortunately didn’t get to see as I was standing on a rocky out crop looking down on the river (picture left). Clacko also got broken off, which he didn’t find too amusing either. Overall it was a beautiful day but the fishing was hard and we didn’t do too well. Next time!
Sunday 24 November
Today we thought we would try a tiny little stream that Clacko’s mate George had told him about, it was called the, well lets just leave it unnanmed shall we, lets call it the Mystery Stream (which I am only doing, not to protect the fish or the fishing, but for legal reasons... which you will come to later. The Mystery Stream and was about an hours drive from Lumsden. We hopped out of the car, set up our rods, donned the waders and headed off up stream. We had only got a few hundred metres when we saw a car stop next to ours, a ranger jumped out and came looking for us. When he found us wanted to check our licences.
Now being the bloke that I am I had my licence tucked away in the front of my waders. “There you are Mr Ranger, knock yourself out.” Clacko on the other hand had decided to keep his in the car as he thought that if a ranger were to stop us while we were driving then he could show it easily enough. So he decided that it would be a good idea to go for a nice stroll back to the car with the Ranger so that none of his gear was confiscated. In New Zealand the Rangers are quite strict and one of the penalties for fishing without a licence or using the wrong equipment is confiscation of the fishing items. Quite strict but they have a fragile and wonderful fishery to protect so there were no complaints from us. In fact once they found out you were doing the right thing they were more than happy to impart any knowledge, answer any questions that you had.
While Clacko stretched his legs I realised that I had a window of opportunity to find some good water before the old boy got back. So putting all my experience to good use I found a nice looking pool that had a sign stuck in the bank saying “Big Fish Ahead Proceed with Caution”. Ok so there was no sign but there may as well have been from the “look” of the water.
Sure enough, after a few casts into the tail end of the pool and a slow stalk up the edges I saw a nice looking fish in some shallow water where the inflowing water met the main body of the pool. One cast into the right spot and the fish came over 6 inches, took the fly and I set the hook! Well big bertha took off and leapt out of the water a couple of times. It took me about 10 minutes to play the fish and get him in the net. I had caught a beautiful healthy brown trout. By this stage Clacko was nearby and he came over with and took my camera off me and took a few pictures for me. This fish went 5 ¾ lbs, which is a big fish in such small water, in fact it’s a not a bad trout in anyone’s book.
The weather was sensational and it turned into a productive day. I was particularly happy as I caught another good fish one weighing 5 ¼ lbs. This one was also caught on a size 16 grey nymph that I had (once again) knocked up in the camp ground kitchen before we had set off. Clacko didn’t catch any this day but his luck on this river was shortly to change.
The fish was caught in about 1 foot of water, as it was lying between some small boulders in some fast water at the head of a pool Photo of the same fish.
If I had to give the pick of all the rivers that we fished in New Zealand, in terms of productivity (but not necessarily scenery) this tiny little stream was it. Clacko and I enjoyed many good days on this Mystery Stream over the next week.
At one stage I saw a fish sitting in the fast water behind a large tuft of grass. I stalked in very close, using the tree as cover and simply dabbed a nymph down in front of this fish. It immediately came over and took that fly and then took off upstream at full speed. I played the fish for about 5 minutes but then he broke off on a log. If I could quote Her Royal Highness the Queen of England “I was not amused”, but given that 20 minutes earlier, downstream, I had caught a beautiful brown I was not overly concerned (who am I kidding, I felt like continuing on fishing with a shot gun!! That would make me feel better!!). So I stood in the river and tied on some more tippet and another nymph, partly cause I need to and partly to cool down. I was about to hop out of the stream when I saw the trout resting under an under cut bank. So off came the net from its fastener on the back of my vest. I approach very slowly and using all my skills as a hunter I then scooped the trout up. Who’d have thought it!
So after a couple of photos for which I have to thank Mr Claxton, I let Mr Brown go. I didn’t tell Clacko that story for about 3 days for fear of reprisals or accusations about not using fly fishing equipment and netting the river to catch fish, but when he did hear about it he took it well, something along the lines of “you should go and get a job in Alaska, netting big fish in small streams, least then you could make money canning them.” Well if the shoe fits?! Oh, and in case you were wondering I did get my size 16 grey nymph fly back from the fishes mouth.
Monday 25 November
We fished the Mystery Stream again today. I initially fished below the bridge while Clacko went above it. I hooked 2 fish over 4lbs but only landed one. I caught both on a dry mayfly pattern that I had tied up the night before. I was surprised at how well the flies went given that they had no hackle, just a body and a set of wings. The one that I landed went 4 ½ lbs.
To catch this fish I had to kneel in some cow patties on a high bank looking down on the stream. I then had to work my arm through some very low tree branches and basically flick the fly upstream. It took about 15 casts to get the fly exactly where I wanted it, being careful not to spook the fish in the meantime. It was a concentrated effort, you could say, if I was an elite athlete, so I think we should stick with that saying.
A couple of times I thought that I may have spooked the fish but I just had to be patient and it would slowly glide up stream searching for food and would then come back to the original spot where I has first seen it. This was the tail end or the bottom of his “beat”, so he would sit in the current facing up stream for a while then head off up the right side of the river and about 5 minutes later come down the left side. This gave me time to get ready and in position to flick my dry fly up and land it in front of him. Which I managed to do and I caught him!
After a quick photo I then hopped in the car and drove up the road to find Clacko. He wasn’t hard to find, he was the bloke in gortex running up the side of the stream looking for fish. From then on we took it in turns fishing pools and runs. Where we were the stream flowed through farmland. At times the dairy cows came down to have a look at us. Irrespective however the fishing was sensational, with each deep pool on the bends in the river holding very good sized fish ranging from 4lbs to a monster we saw that would have tipped the scales at close to 8lbs.
Clacko came across a great looking pool where he had spotted a couple of fish working its way from the fast water to the slow water. So Clacko positioned himself behind a bush directly behind where the water flowed into the pool where the fish spent most of its time. After about 30 minutes and much perseverance on his behalf he hooked an absolute beauty, just ever so slightly under 6 lbs! To say that the old boy was happy would be an understatement! I did the honours with the video camera so that we have some good video footage of the fight and once he had landed it I grabbed the digital cameras (his and mine) and took some photos. It was a beautiful fish. Well done Clacko!
A bit later I landed another 4 lbs brown from further upstream, it put up a bit of a fight but nothing as determined as the fight from Clacko’s monster.
The weather that afternoon was absolutely awesome. We wore our waders only because the wind, when it blew, was a bit chilly. Day time temperatures were still only getting up to about 16-17 despite the glorious sunshine.
Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th November
We fished the Mystery Stream on both days. For your information, we had come across a big sign posted on the fence over the river where we entered indicating that fishermen were not welcome. With Clacko being part Aborigine and myself being part Maori we sat down and had a cooroboree/marae and decided that we couldn’t read these strange symbols on the white man fence and that we would be best served entering and fishing the land.
The legal phrase, Clacko informed me (he’s a smart aborigine that one, but I suppose you worked that out because he obviously makes enough money from being a lawyer to afford skin bleaching treatment), that we would be “poaching”. Now as an Australian qualified lawyer, until I have applied for membership to the New Zealand Bar Association under the Mutual Recognition Act, I am not entitled to practice in New Zealand so my legal abilities to provide advice in relation to any real or imagine breaches of the law were null and void and therefore invalid, plus I have problem reading “no fishing signs”.
We were glad that we did jump that fence as it produced some of the biggest fish in the smallest water that I have ever fished that were keen to take flies presented properly. This fish caught by Clacko went slightly under 6 lbs, again, he was not amused about not cracking the 6lbs barrier!
We spent the next few days on the Mystery Stream. We even had a fish right down in the lower reaches of the stream, which is where this photo is taken. Clacko and I decided not to go back down that far again as the water was slow with many large pools and as a result the fishing was not as exciting, nor as productive, as it was higher up.
On this day not only did we try right down at the lower reaches of the river in the morning (with no luck, in fact I hardly wet a line but I did manage to stop for a feed), but in the afternoon we went back up to the area that had the strange markings on the fence. We explored up through the farmland and that the river actually flowed through a pine forest. I spent a few hours going up stream and found some beautiful pools. I managed to catch another fish that went over 5 lbs with some ingenuity. The fish in question was sitting in dead still water at the bottom of a pool.
Picture me, if you can, behind a bush on a high bank about 3 metres almost straight above the fish. I knew that if I tried to cast the line the fish would see me and/or I would spook him when the fly line landed so I came up with another solution. I waited for the fish to go up stream, which he did after about 20 minutes, whereupon I let out some fly line and held my arm straight up in the air with my rod horizontal to the stream so that I could get the fly far enough over to where the trout was in the water. My fly was dangling about a foot off the water. So here I stayed like a portable antenna for about another 10 minutes until the fish came back downstream. I did not want to risk any movements when the fish was around because he surely would have seen me as the water was so still. After he settled back into position all I had to do (when I say “all” try to remember that my arm was a bit numb at this stage) was lower the fly ever so gentle in the water.
As soon as I did and it had floated down stream about 4 feet the trout came over and ate it! All hell broke loose then with the fish running up stream and then back down stream and he even jumped out of the water twice. I eventually got him in the net and knocked him on the head. We had been in NZ now for over 10 days and I still hadn’t tasted any trout as we hadn’t killed any and it is not available commercially in the stores. You can catch it but you can’t sell it commercially. I had him for dinner with some potatoes and vegetables.
Clacko tried a bit but wasn’t too enthused about it, in fact he doesn’t like eating fish/seafood in general. Just so you can understand how big he was I cut off 4 steaks (like you see salmon steaks in the supermarket) for Clacko and I to eat. I shared them between us, Clacko had one and I had the other 3. Anyway there were still another 5 left, which I think (can’t quite remember as I have trouble thinking and talking when I am that full) we had them the next night or fed to the carnivorous sheep that lived in the camp ground. Least I thought it was a meat eater as it was sooo enormous. Ok, so I threw them out but they did taste great.
Rest of the photos
And so ended Clacko and Simeys Trophy Trout trip Number 1 to the South Island of New Zealand. There were no trophy fish, following a strict definition that a trophy is any trout over 10lbs in weight, but they were all trophies to us!!
[1] Please refer to footnote 1.
Photos up to and including November 23
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| NZ Nov 02 - Part 2 |
Friday 22 November
Late start as were we both a bit slow in getting out of bed. We went and fished the Mataura in the same spot as the day before. Clacko caught a nice 3lbs brown in an eddy off the main stream. It took a bit of landing, actually I was doing the honours on the net and I couldn’t get the trout in – took me about 26 swipes! Clacko had him on for about 15 minutes. I managed to get some nice video footage, you will see below a photo of the successful angler – well done Clacko!
After we had taken the obligatory photos and some footage with the video camera we walked up stream. I found a steep bank with some slow water and cast a nymph in and waited for it to sink. I then giggled it up and down a few times by simply lifting the rod so the nymph came up and then lowering it again so it could sink. So while I am doing that Clacko walks past and seeing the up and down action with the rod asks if I have caught one. AN without a word of a lie between the time he asked that and before I could answer a fish took the nymph! So I casually said “yeah I think so”. It went slightly over 3lbs, a tiddler by New Zealand standards but I haven’t caught many bigger in Australia.
While DC went back to the car I fished some more and hooked another one in some very shallow water, close in to the shore amongst some timber. As there were so many branches around I didn’t give the fish any room to play and it snapped me off.
Saturday 23 November
We drove to the upper Oreti just past Mavora Lakes. We parked at the bridge where we had stopped to have a look at the river and we had promptly seen a large brown trout feeding. By “large” I mean 6lbs plus, more likely closer to 8lbs. Despite Clacko’s best efforts to put me on the fish, by giving me directions from the bridge above the stream I was unable to tempt him with a fly. In all honesty I don’t think that my fly got anywhere near him so that he never had the opportunity to even have a look at the fly, even though at one stage he did come up to have a look at the strike indicator!
We then walked upstream about 400m where I saw another large fish of about 8lbs. In between the fish and I was a fence that crossed the river. Three casts over the fence with a dry fly were met with no result. I was also getting concerned that I was tempting fate and that any minute I might get a snag, so better stop mucking around I thought and have a real go. So pulled the line in and sat down and tied on a size 16 grey nymph that I had tied back at the camp ground that morning. One more cast out over the fence and onto the water. I watched the fish come over about 6 inches and sip in the fly and it was on!
This trout was enormous, easily the biggest one of the trip that I had caught or hooked. I played him for about 5 minutes at one point handing my rod over the fence to Clacko so that I could get in the water upstream from the fence and play the fish. After a little while the trout went hard up against the bank, no problems usually but this time the line got wrapped around a small branch. Cutting to the chase, I go snapped off! I was not amused, as the video testifies.
Later that afternoon Clacko also hooked a nice fish, which I unfortunately didn’t get to see as I was standing on a rocky out crop looking down on the river (picture left). Clacko also got broken off, which he didn’t find too amusing either. Overall it was a beautiful day but the fishing was hard and we didn’t do too well. Next time!
Sunday 24 November
Today we thought we would try a tiny little stream that Clacko’s mate George had told him about, it was called the, well lets just leave it unnanmed shall we, lets call it the Mystery Stream (which I am only doing, not to protect the fish or the fishing, but for legal reasons... which you will come to later. The Mystery Stream and was about an hours drive from Lumsden. We hopped out of the car, set up our rods, donned the waders and headed off up stream. We had only got a few hundred metres when we saw a car stop next to ours, a ranger jumped out and came looking for us. When he found us wanted to check our licences.
Now being the bloke that I am I had my licence tucked away in the front of my waders. “There you are Mr Ranger, knock yourself out.” Clacko on the other hand had decided to keep his in the car as he thought that if a ranger were to stop us while we were driving then he could show it easily enough. So he decided that it would be a good idea to go for a nice stroll back to the car with the Ranger so that none of his gear was confiscated. In New Zealand the Rangers are quite strict and one of the penalties for fishing without a licence or using the wrong equipment is confiscation of the fishing items. Quite strict but they have a fragile and wonderful fishery to protect so there were no complaints from us. In fact once they found out you were doing the right thing they were more than happy to impart any knowledge, answer any questions that you had.
While Clacko stretched his legs I realised that I had a window of opportunity to find some good water before the old boy got back. So putting all my experience to good use I found a nice looking pool that had a sign stuck in the bank saying “Big Fish Ahead Proceed with Caution”. Ok so there was no sign but there may as well have been from the “look” of the water.
Sure enough, after a few casts into the tail end of the pool and a slow stalk up the edges I saw a nice looking fish in some shallow water where the inflowing water met the main body of the pool. One cast into the right spot and the fish came over 6 inches, took the fly and I set the hook! Well big bertha took off and leapt out of the water a couple of times. It took me about 10 minutes to play the fish and get him in the net. I had caught a beautiful healthy brown trout. By this stage Clacko was nearby and he came over with and took my camera off me and took a few pictures for me. This fish went 5 ¾ lbs, which is a big fish in such small water, in fact it’s a not a bad trout in anyone’s book.
The weather was sensational and it turned into a productive day. I was particularly happy as I caught another good fish one weighing 5 ¼ lbs. This one was also caught on a size 16 grey nymph that I had (once again) knocked up in the camp ground kitchen before we had set off. Clacko didn’t catch any this day but his luck on this river was shortly to change.
The fish was caught in about 1 foot of water, as it was lying between some small boulders in some fast water at the head of a pool Photo of the same fish.
If I had to give the pick of all the rivers that we fished in New Zealand, in terms of productivity (but not necessarily scenery) this tiny little stream was it. Clacko and I enjoyed many good days on this Mystery Stream over the next week.
At one stage I saw a fish sitting in the fast water behind a large tuft of grass. I stalked in very close, using the tree as cover and simply dabbed a nymph down in front of this fish. It immediately came over and took that fly and then took off upstream at full speed. I played the fish for about 5 minutes but then he broke off on a log. If I could quote Her Royal Highness the Queen of England “I was not amused”, but given that 20 minutes earlier, downstream, I had caught a beautiful brown I was not overly concerned (who am I kidding, I felt like continuing on fishing with a shot gun!! That would make me feel better!!). So I stood in the river and tied on some more tippet and another nymph, partly cause I need to and partly to cool down. I was about to hop out of the stream when I saw the trout resting under an under cut bank. So off came the net from its fastener on the back of my vest. I approach very slowly and using all my skills as a hunter I then scooped the trout up. Who’d have thought it!
So after a couple of photos for which I have to thank Mr Claxton, I let Mr Brown go. I didn’t tell Clacko that story for about 3 days for fear of reprisals or accusations about not using fly fishing equipment and netting the river to catch fish, but when he did hear about it he took it well, something along the lines of “you should go and get a job in Alaska, netting big fish in small streams, least then you could make money canning them.” Well if the shoe fits?! Oh, and in case you were wondering I did get my size 16 grey nymph fly back from the fishes mouth.
Monday 25 November
We fished the Mystery Stream again today. I initially fished below the bridge while Clacko went above it. I hooked 2 fish over 4lbs but only landed one. I caught both on a dry mayfly pattern that I had tied up the night before. I was surprised at how well the flies went given that they had no hackle, just a body and a set of wings. The one that I landed went 4 ½ lbs.
To catch this fish I had to kneel in some cow patties on a high bank looking down on the stream. I then had to work my arm through some very low tree branches and basically flick the fly upstream. It took about 15 casts to get the fly exactly where I wanted it, being careful not to spook the fish in the meantime. It was a concentrated effort, you could say, if I was an elite athlete, so I think we should stick with that saying.
A couple of times I thought that I may have spooked the fish but I just had to be patient and it would slowly glide up stream searching for food and would then come back to the original spot where I has first seen it. This was the tail end or the bottom of his “beat”, so he would sit in the current facing up stream for a while then head off up the right side of the river and about 5 minutes later come down the left side. This gave me time to get ready and in position to flick my dry fly up and land it in front of him. Which I managed to do and I caught him!
After a quick photo I then hopped in the car and drove up the road to find Clacko. He wasn’t hard to find, he was the bloke in gortex running up the side of the stream looking for fish. From then on we took it in turns fishing pools and runs. Where we were the stream flowed through farmland. At times the dairy cows came down to have a look at us. Irrespective however the fishing was sensational, with each deep pool on the bends in the river holding very good sized fish ranging from 4lbs to a monster we saw that would have tipped the scales at close to 8lbs.
Clacko came across a great looking pool where he had spotted a couple of fish working its way from the fast water to the slow water. So Clacko positioned himself behind a bush directly behind where the water flowed into the pool where the fish spent most of its time. After about 30 minutes and much perseverance on his behalf he hooked an absolute beauty, just ever so slightly under 6 lbs! To say that the old boy was happy would be an understatement! I did the honours with the video camera so that we have some good video footage of the fight and once he had landed it I grabbed the digital cameras (his and mine) and took some photos. It was a beautiful fish. Well done Clacko!
A bit later I landed another 4 lbs brown from further upstream, it put up a bit of a fight but nothing as determined as the fight from Clacko’s monster.
The weather that afternoon was absolutely awesome. We wore our waders only because the wind, when it blew, was a bit chilly. Day time temperatures were still only getting up to about 16-17 despite the glorious sunshine.
Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th November
We fished the Mystery Stream on both days. For your information, we had come across a big sign posted on the fence over the river where we entered indicating that fishermen were not welcome. With Clacko being part Aborigine and myself being part Maori we sat down and had a cooroboree/marae and decided that we couldn’t read these strange symbols on the white man fence and that we would be best served entering and fishing the land.
The legal phrase, Clacko informed me (he’s a smart aborigine that one, but I suppose you worked that out because he obviously makes enough money from being a lawyer to afford skin bleaching treatment), that we would be “poaching”. Now as an Australian qualified lawyer, until I have applied for membership to the New Zealand Bar Association under the Mutual Recognition Act, I am not entitled to practice in New Zealand so my legal abilities to provide advice in relation to any real or imagine breaches of the law were null and void and therefore invalid, plus I have problem reading “no fishing signs”.
We were glad that we did jump that fence as it produced some of the biggest fish in the smallest water that I have ever fished that were keen to take flies presented properly. This fish caught by Clacko went slightly under 6 lbs, again, he was not amused about not cracking the 6lbs barrier!
We spent the next few days on the Mystery Stream. We even had a fish right down in the lower reaches of the stream, which is where this photo is taken. Clacko and I decided not to go back down that far again as the water was slow with many large pools and as a result the fishing was not as exciting, nor as productive, as it was higher up.
On this day not only did we try right down at the lower reaches of the river in the morning (with no luck, in fact I hardly wet a line but I did manage to stop for a feed), but in the afternoon we went back up to the area that had the strange markings on the fence. We explored up through the farmland and that the river actually flowed through a pine forest. I spent a few hours going up stream and found some beautiful pools. I managed to catch another fish that went over 5 lbs with some ingenuity. The fish in question was sitting in dead still water at the bottom of a pool.
Picture me, if you can, behind a bush on a high bank about 3 metres almost straight above the fish. I knew that if I tried to cast the line the fish would see me and/or I would spook him when the fly line landed so I came up with another solution. I waited for the fish to go up stream, which he did after about 20 minutes, whereupon I let out some fly line and held my arm straight up in the air with my rod horizontal to the stream so that I could get the fly far enough over to where the trout was in the water. My fly was dangling about a foot off the water. So here I stayed like a portable antenna for about another 10 minutes until the fish came back downstream. I did not want to risk any movements when the fish was around because he surely would have seen me as the water was so still. After he settled back into position all I had to do (when I say “all” try to remember that my arm was a bit numb at this stage) was lower the fly ever so gentle in the water.
As soon as I did and it had floated down stream about 4 feet the trout came over and ate it! All hell broke loose then with the fish running up stream and then back down stream and he even jumped out of the water twice. I eventually got him in the net and knocked him on the head. We had been in NZ now for over 10 days and I still hadn’t tasted any trout as we hadn’t killed any and it is not available commercially in the stores. You can catch it but you can’t sell it commercially. I had him for dinner with some potatoes and vegetables.
Clacko tried a bit but wasn’t too enthused about it, in fact he doesn’t like eating fish/seafood in general. Just so you can understand how big he was I cut off 4 steaks (like you see salmon steaks in the supermarket) for Clacko and I to eat. I shared them between us, Clacko had one and I had the other 3. Anyway there were still another 5 left, which I think (can’t quite remember as I have trouble thinking and talking when I am that full) we had them the next night or fed to the carnivorous sheep that lived in the camp ground. Least I thought it was a meat eater as it was sooo enormous. Ok, so I threw them out but they did taste great.
Rest of the photos
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| NZ Nov 02 - Part 3 |
And so ended Clacko and Simeys Trophy Trout trip Number 1 to the South Island of New Zealand. There were no trophy fish, following a strict definition that a trophy is any trout over 10lbs in weight, but they were all trophies to us!!
[1] Please refer to footnote 1.