By Mike Sayle, with Photography by Jared Goedhart
A Year In Taupo: October
There is a creature lurking in our midst that needs to be hunted down and exterminated without mercy. The creature in question is the loathsome beast who sees no wrong in leaving litter in and along the courses and banks of our rivers. Candy bar wrappers, empty soft drink bottles or cans and my particular dislike, lengths of discarded nylon trace.
For some reason that escapes me, these litter louts will happily tote the full bottles or cans in, but can't be bothered taking the empty ones out. It's a sure bet they carried out whatever fish they caught!
As for leaving snarls of nylon filament behind, if I could I'd make this a kneecapping offence, or for the bleeding heart liberals among you, revoke their license for the rest of the year. Empty bottles and the like are unsightly, nylon is dangerous. The main cause is the slow and painful death of birds who pick the nylon up to make nests with, then become entangled in it and slowly starve to death, probably including any off spring in the nest at the same time. All this because some idiot couldn't be bothered putting his tangled up nylon in his pocket.
We are lucky enough to be able to freely fish some of the best trout rivers and streams in the whole world for a minimal fee, if a year's license was subject to lottery and winners had to pay $10,000 it's a sure bet the litter problem would all but vanish. If we compare our system of mostly free access to rivers to the English system of private ownership of waters and, to our minds at least, outrageous fees demanded of the lucky few who can fish there, we are blessed indeed.
On a happier note, I've discovered a secret weapon in my hunt for the perfect fish. A weapon of staggering simplicity, it has proved its worth with me bringing home fish in 3 trips out of 5, with strikes and lost fish for one reason or another on all of them. It's called 5 a.m. I can hear your grin from here. I've never been an early riser by choice, staying in bed until the world has warmed up seems such a logical thing to do. However, in a fit of insomnia, I rose at 4.45 a.m. a week or so ago and decided to go fishing. The drive out to the Waitahanui was lightly coated with rain showers but I figured that I had come this far, I may as well go through with it.
Wading out into the pool in the very first slow light of day, I decided maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. I was bundled up like the Michelin Man in waders, layers of jerseys, my huge green raincoat and feeling no real pain. Opting for a pair of Globugs, I cast on as it got light without any interest from the fish I was sure were there, but could not as yet see. Slowly things got lighter as a soft rain fell, first I could see my marker clearly, then leaves on trees, then my olive green line on the surface. Then the silent and only just moving black shapes in the water right in front of me....... By the time it was good and light, I could see a dozen or more fish within casting distance, mostly breeding pairs and one clump of 5 fish in a hollow directly in front of me.
The Globugs still hadn't worked their magic, so I changed to a lightly weighted Bob's Caddis towing a Pheasant and Copper and almost straight away something nipped at one or the other. Better! More casting produced no interest, so I removed the Pheasant and Copper in favor of the smallest orange Globug I had, a tiny thing I had plucked from a bush on the Hinemaiai a week or so before. I had my doubts about this but something needed changing.
Four or five casts later, my marker suddenly changed direction and dropped below the surface. A twitch of the rod and my reel was in reverse and paying out briskly. That morning I lost the first two after much whizzing and splashing, the third was eventually beached safely and taken home for a date with the smoker.
Successive mornings showed the tiny Globug to be the preferred flavour and I figured out once and for all that obviously spawning pairs have no interest in eating while they are hard at it. I mentioned this to a lady friend who remarked she could do both at once. As she has three children I could only defer to her greater experience.
I also came to the conclusion that nymphing may not be the optimum method in the dark. Without exception I have yet to have a strike on a nymph when it wasn't at least mostly light. I have read the theory that this is because most buggy critters don't go out after dark, the trout know this and react accordingly. Considering that some of the most effective flies don't really look like anything natural, I feel I have to test this theory at greater length.
Labor Weekend has been and gone, I got in an early fish at Black Fish Pool on the upper Waitahanui on the Friday morning, caught a nice fat hen that smoked beautifully. Despite a perfect weekend weather wise, I didn't really want to fish, it's a safe bet the rivers would have been chocka with imports. So on the Tuesday morning I set off for a dawn patrol. On arriving at Black Fish Pool again I stood on the bank looking in to the water expectantly and saw nothing. The usual haunts were totally barren, farther up the pool a shadow furtively sidled under cover before I could get a good look at it. Some minutes later another shadow moved from one cover point to another and that was all. Despite appearances I fished anyway. Half an hour later, without the slightest nibble or even seeing any I gave up and waded up pool to retrieve a pair of flies that I had carefully cast into the bushes. Leaving my line trailing out behind me, I extracted my flies from the Five-finger, then carefully searched for any others, finding another pair and pocketing them for later.
All the while my rod had been wedged under my armpit, now turning to reel in, I discovered a sardine sized rainbow attached to the other end. This isn't the first time I have noticed this phenomenon, on several other occasions I have had this happen, once the trout in question being of quite good size. Quite why a trout (of any size) would take a Globug that is stationary and on the surface of a flowing stream is beyond me. All the books I have ever read on the subject of nymphing all stress the importance of correct presentation and here this little brute makes a mockery of it all.
I decided to move up to the Limit Pool, long being recognized as a bulk holding pool. A slow walk along the bank showed a single, quite large trout holding station above a head sized boulder. A stealthy creep down the bank and into the water, and the trout sidled sideways into deeper water and disappeared. Oh well. Since I was already in the water, I started casting anyway, a few moments later the same (?) trout returned, this time with a girl (boy?) friend in tow and resumed station above their rock. So far so good, their rock was below an overhanging branch surrounded by other overhanging bushes, while at my back I had a steep bank also containing sundry overhanging stuff.
So here was my problem, couldn't get too close, they were noticeably edgy as it was, couldn't hang back and cast long, not enough back casting room. The solution? Admire them from afar while my casts dropped a crucial meter or more short. Some days there just is no winning!
Made a trip to the Hinemaiai River today, my first since the big floods a few weeks back. It had been a major flood, washed down trees everywhere, adding to the already crowded snag population. In one place the river had bulldozed across a long loop and almost completely cut it off. A tiny trickle was left, just enough to stop what was left of the water from stagnating. Several excellent pools had been filled to the brim with sand, I walked across the remains of a pool in ankle deep water where there used to be a 6 foot deep hole, the over hanging native fuchsia that had been my nemesis now reduced to just another shrub over a small trickle. Just above where the river had diverted was nice long stretch of open water with a rough gravel bottom that had been the delight of spawning trout and the fishermen pursuing them.Now practically the whole length, some several hundred meters, was covered with a uniform layer of sand. I shudder to think of what became of the buried ova, let alone the entire community of buggy critters the trout would have fed on that also lived among the gravel and small boulders. I suppose the next major storm will wash it all away again but it was still depressing to see such an excellent section of river ruined. The horrors, for me at least, continued farther down stream.
The stretch where I had taken several fish and lost more was also buried under sand, my lovely self named Willow Pool was now a sandy bath tub sized affair. I suppose trout will pause there still, but without the undercut bank of the willow island and useful meter to a meter and a half of brisk water over a rocky hollow that made it so attractive to both fish and fishermen. On the other side of the island, my favorite log was half buried, its under hangs also filled smooth. Perhaps saddest of all, just above, the log where I had taken the fighting jack was completely covered, likewise the useful little boulders in mid stream adjacent to it.
Of course the river was only doing what rivers do, ever flowing, ever changing according to its own plan, we merely temporary visitors upon it. Even so, the total effect was much like the day I found my all-time favorite coffee house in Wellington closed up and out of business, a sort of "now what?" sensation.
It would be wrong of me to say the whole river was ruined, a previously heavily snagged bend was now clear and much straighter with several ways to fish it.
Also, where the river had cut across the bend, it flowed back out in to the river at ninety degrees to the original flow down a short bank, making a pleasant cascade and deepish swirling pool below. This, I discovered, was possible to fish by dropping the flies almost at my feet and letting them be swept first toward the cascade on one side of the swirl, then around at the very foot of the cascade and then back toward me on the other side. With a little experimentation with various weights of flies, I could make the pair bowl merrily along within a hand span or less of the bottom, at least while I could see them. It was during one such circuit that my marker did its magic disappearing act and the fight was joined. The fish, while not huge, was spirited enough to drag my line all over the pool, as well as a high broach that confirmed it as a good size although not really big. Several laps of the pool later, it sulked on the bottom and I was able reel it in until my marker was less than a meter from rod tip. I thought perhaps I could ease it into shallow water and start landing operations. Instead it bolted down stream and under a bank composed mainly of sunken blackberry. I jammed the reel and hoped I could stall it long enough that it would turn and move back upstream to me. TWANG! Nope.
With the aid of 20/20 hindsight, what I should have done was try to hurry it downstream past the snags and into the more open pool ten or twenty paces below and hopefully land it there. Lacking that, it came off cleanly and not hung up on a snag under the bank where I could not get to it and be forced to snap the line and leave the trout to it's chances. That would have been a tragedy.
A Year In Taupo: November
The weather is getting noticeably warmer, I've taken to wading, in the shallows at least, in my sandals. One of the benefits of this is the fish/walk/fish thing is easier. It's true that waders are not so bad to walk in, and god knows they are too good in cold water, but there is a certain sense of... connection.... to be had from standing in the actual water as you fish.
I've been exploring the lower reaches of the Waitahanui and made a number of interesting discoveries. These include the fact that access to lower pools is easy, the pools tend to be open and the water flows without the boisterousness that marks the upper reaches. More room to back cast as well, although not as much as you might think, several of the taller manukas have my flies decorating their branches.
One of the most delightful stretches goes by the apt name of "The Promenade." An almost dead straight stretch of water of some 200 meters between 2 most fishable elbow pools, it has a path along almost it's full length, with bushy grass overhanging to the water. If trout didn't hide under this, literally at your feet, I'd be most surprised.
Already I have taken 2 trout from this stretch, as well as losing several and spotting a dozen or so more. The trick so far has been to use a fairly heavy top fly as weight trailing a small pheasant-and-copper half back cast well under the scrub on the far side. Oddly the trout here don't seem too fussed about which they take, unlike other places where they usually show a distinct preference for the lower fly.
The lower reaches of this river are heavily fished, as a rule, but with a little perseverance there is usually a fish for the taking, and it is pleasant to fish from mown grass. The clarity of the water constantly amazes me, the expression "gin clear" is fully merited.
At the suggestion of the Boss, I've introduced a friend of hers to the gentle art of fly fishing. Lou is from England and tells me horror stories of dank and dead canals running through her home town. The Waitahanui filled her with delight with it's clear waters and pristine river bed. I'm constantly stunned at how hard beginner fly fishers make their lives, making a hash of the simplest concept. I know, I undoubtedly made all the same mistakes and more during my embryo stage, but even so.... I shudder to hear the riiiiip of a slack line being hoisted by brute force off the surface of a quiet pool. This said, she is quickly getting the hang of it, even nearly mastering the neat little over hand flip that transfers a line from down stream to up in one tidy movement.
A Year In Taupo: December
I had to laugh today. Lou turned up for her weekly fishing trip proudly holding a brand new rod and reel. I had taken her to a sportshop in town to buy some more hooks, and while we were there I showed her some of the delightful new rods on offer. She listened patiently as I waxed over this rod and that, then drove me home.
She had returned to the same shop some days later and they had fitted her out with a 6 wt Abu Garcia identical to Sue's, a Bargain Basement special, but completely usable, Daiwa carbon plastic reel and a double taper 6 weight line, complete with 100 meters of backing and leader loop. I do like that shop, they know their fish.
I also gave Lou a few lessons in elementary fly tying, my line of reasoning being that why pay $2 for some thing you can build yourself for 10 cents?
Nymph fishing being what it is, at $2 a pop, you'll soon be helping the shop owner pay for his new pool if you go on buying what you need. For $20 worth of hooks and dubbing, you can build 3 dozen or more flies. Not to mention the kick you get out of catching fish on them.
My sister had her heart set on a trip by motorcycle around the South Island, and at the last moment the friend she was supposed to go with pulled out. Would I like to go with her instead? I umm'ed and ahh'ed about taking my valiant little fold up fly rod and some flies, only to eventually decide to leave them at home as too much trouble to carry, probably won’t have the time etc, etc, then spent the next 10 days kicking myself for the fool I am. I could have fished any one of half a dozen rivers and almost as many lakes in that time, almost every night we camped beside some river or lake or some such, and I could only watch as the trout splashed and cavorted in the evenings. The last time I was in the South Island I swore next time I would take a rod, next time I will, but sod's law will out, I bet!
END NOTE: Mike Sayle is writing a series of articles on fishing for a year in Taupo, just to remind the rest of us what we’re missing by not living in New Zealand.
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