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I met Ray from Reliable Rentals and picked up my car, it’s a wagon, Clacko and I have used this exact car before. It was the replacement car we were given when he blew the clutch on the other one we hired, driving at 170km an hour to make it to the chicken shop before it closed. Fair trade I reckon, one burnt out clutch for 2 serves of chips and 4 pieces of chicken. You can see that we made it then. After our feed we then limped back to Lumsden but we had a full stomach so it was ok.
I hopped in the car and left Dunedin. I drove through Milton and stopped at Balclutha for some chicken and chips. Then I drove on to Wapahi where I took the Conical Hills road to the Pomahaka Rv. I wanted to fish the same stretch that I did with Clacko like I did last year. Unlike the year before though the road along the river was severely overgrown which was a surprise as the road used to be clear and open. So I didn’t feel like driving the car too far along the road as I didn’t want to scratch the duco.
After paralleling the river for 65km I decided to get out and have a look at the river. (the speedo was playing up so I can’t confirm whether it was really 65km that I had travelled through the dense foliage. I started to suspect something was wrong with the speedo when it told me that I was doing 180km in a 100km zone... bloody Japanese imports.
So I got out and had a fish. I had a new rod, reel and fly line that was making its debut. I had purchased a new 6wt Loomis GLX and Lamson Litespeed reel all courtesy of eBay. So with all my flash new gear I was keen to hook into a dozen or so fish. The result...... nothing. Not even one take. Simeys Trophy Trout trip to the South Island had not gotten off to the best start. This was coupled with the fact that I had fallen over wading and had hurt my left hand. It was badly bruised. Least it wasn’t my casting hand though.
I headed into Gore and went to the supermarket and bought some supplies. Then I drove to the campground at Lumsden. I put myself up in the single hut again. I got to sleep late and didn’t sleep too well at all.
12 April 2006
I got up early and left the camp ground about 6am (seems like I was over the jet lag). It was still pitch black when I left the camp ground. I had a travel mug with me so breakfast was a coffee made with condensed milk and 2 kilos of Toblerone. We have a tradition you see, every time we go to NZ we buy at least 3 big bars of Toblerone chocolate. I was keeping the tradition alive even though there was no one to share the chocolate with!
I drove up to the upper Oreti. There was a fair bit of fog around. The drive took 1 and ½ hours but it was beautiful.
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I then fished on up and eventually caught a couple blind fishing, they were both taken on a bead head nymph. On the way I stopped at a great looking pool and stood there for about 5 minutes until I saw a decent looking fish. I then tried to catch him but with no luck, I knew that my fly wasn’t getting down deep enough to the fish. So I pulled my line out of the water and tied on about 2.5m of tipped and a big size 10 bead head nymph. Well first cast, or actually it was more of a dab as it’s a bit hard to cast an 18 foot leader with such a heavy fly on the end when the leader isn’t tapered properly.
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About an hour later I got back to the car, had a cup of tea and something to eat.
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Then I hopped in the car and went for a drive down the river towards the lake. I came to a spot where the river comes very close to the road. The road overlooks a large pool from an elevated bank that is about 3 metres above the water. I got out and admired the scenery and quickly spotted 4 decent fish feeding. So I thought what the heck, put my 6 weight rod together and had a cast. I made a mental note to check for traffic, which I thought was quite an astute mental note to make, given that I was casting into the pool from the middle of the road.
3 rd cast a nice fish came over to my fly and it was on. He put on a bit of a show and jumped out of the water, and promptly broke me off. This action spooked the other fish and I decided to stow the rod and continue with a drive down the road and 'measure the distance' as they say in Arabic.
For all readers who may not be aware I had made a promise to my mother, who is a Kiwi by birth, to as far as possible, use Kiwi phrases as much as I could in an effort to get in touch with my cultural heritage. Now I should mention that my father is an Arab by birth and while I had made no such promises to him, partly cause the Kiwis wouldn’t understand me if I spoke Arabic to them and also because I can’t actually speak Arabic, I thought that I would, if possible, drop any appropriate Arabic phrases that I knew in English that might be roughly appropriate. Now, if I could only manage to weave in at some stage ‘Put your faith in God but tether your camel’ the trip will be a linguistic success.
About 30 minutes later I was at the pool and after tethering my camel (by turning off the ignition and getting it as far off the road as I could) I had a look back into the same large pool. Blow me down if the fish weren’t all back feeding. Out came the rod and I hooked another one. This one took of down stream but after a fight of a couple of minutes it spat the hook. Oh well....maybe I should put my faith in God (since the camel wasnt going anywhere... unless I knocked the park brake off!)
I then walked back to the camel, sorry the car, and got an apple out and sat down by the river. A few minutes later I notice another fish feeding. This one took my nymph on the first cast and I even managed to land him, a nice 5lb brown.
I was content to then pack up my rod and let my ship of the desert glide me back over the plains through the crisp mountain air back to the camp ground.
19 April 2006
Darren Roylett, aka Dario Franchetti, aka Rampaging Roy, aka Roy arrived from Canberra tonight. I picked him up at Dunedin airport. The bloody plane was 3 hours late (sorry I have reverted to Australian for that statement and not very good Australian at that, as I feel it conveys my emotions quite well).
Luckily Dario had let me know this via text so I knew I had some time so I stopped and fished a lovely little river on the road between Christchurch and Dunedin. I saw a couple of truly large fish, hooked one but lost it. I got bailed up by some farmer who reckons I was poaching but I had asked some old geezer for permission to have a fish and once I pointed out the house of the person that I had asked permission off the farmer was quite friendly. He even gave me his name and phone number and told me to ring ahead next time and he would point me out some good water.
Dario was happy to be out of the plane given his delays. We drove back to Lumsden and hit the camp ground about 10.30pm.
20 April 2006
We fished together most of the morning. Dario, Daz, Darren or Dash (depending on the day and what I feel like calling him) spent a good hour chucking a dry fly at a nice rainbow in a small pool deep in the gorge. He hooked him twice but unfortunately the hook came out both times. I felt sorry for Daz, it would have been good to see him land it.
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| Deep in the Gorge |
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Dario looking at some Fish Porn back at the Mossburn Campground to get him 'in the mood'!
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Dario up to his waist in the Mataura
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Cold on the Oreti
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Just got the news that the plane wasnt going to attempt to land while the runway was so wet.
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We had a great trip together as you can see from the photos!