A River Never Sleeps

The weather has been hot and dry for the last month or more, I can’t remember the last day of rain. So the rivers are low and clear, pools firmly established and well charted by your avid angler. Not that this is helping my trip-to-fish ratio any, I see the little, and in some case not so little, brutes hanging about but have no luck in persuading them to bite. February is traditionally a slow month for the rivers in this area of New Zealand, but this is little consolation when I patrol pools that have in the past been good producers, only to be denied at every cast. I have heard fishing called the art of prolonged expectation, so I guess all I can do is stay on the case and wait for the weather to cool off.

I've been using the time to explore the upper reaches of the Waitahanui River. Even though the fish are on a go-slow, it's still productive in reccie terms. As fishable water, it takes a modicum of practice, the bush is over hanging in most places and only too happy to snag an incautiously cast fly. In several places a tree will lean out from one bank to meet a tree leaning out from the other bank, forming a green bridge. The river is quite narrow and mostly quite fast, hasty retrieval of line is a must, not for here the leisurely taking up of slack that make the lower river so pleasant.

I've staked out a couple of promising looking boulders and rocky jumbles that make good sized back eddies that must be holding places for fish moving up during the spawn. In the course of this survey I've crashed through under growth, been ripped by black berry, slipped on muddy banks and snagged my rod and line on trees and fern innumerable.

And almost without exception, there turned out to be an easier way to get to it than the way I took. I walk along the established tracks, peering off into the undergrowth, looking for even a hint of a track leading down to the river.

Sometimes I find a little used track leading off some place, crash long it and discover it leads to a swift section of the river, completely hopeless for nymphing but usable for wet lining. I've tried wet lining a few times, and seen quite a few fishers, mainly older chaps, who still practice the art. I've also heard it said that it catches a bigger proportion of larger fish compared to nymphing. Lacking hard proof of this I'm taking it with pinch of salt until developments prove me wrong. I suppose if I was a philosopher I could make something of the fact that wet liners perforce have their backs to the flow, looking where the river has been, nymphers face up stream, looking the river in the eye.

Added to the frustration of very few fish caught has been the numbers I have seen from afar, big stroppy fish of ten plus pounds that vanish at the least excuse. I suppose it makes sense that they don't get that big by being careless, and if nothing else it's an object lesson in sneaking up on them. It is kind of humbling to be a hundred feet up a bluff, watching them, then stepping out from behind the bush I was using for a blind and seeing the fish scatter as they catch sight of me. How exactly I'm supposed to get within casting range of these trophy fish? I haven't quite figured out just yet. . .

I broke with tradition today and spent a couple of hours fishing the Waitahanui Rip. I always look at the river mouth as I drive past, often seeing up to twenty fishermen patiently casting and retrieving. This alone puts me off, I like my fishing solitary. It's an entirely different experience fishing here, the atmosphere more like that of a public bar, a sense of community if you will. The fishermen stand six to fifty feet apart, depending on numbers and the shape of the rip, and fifty fishermen are not at all uncommon when the fish are moving. Not for nothing is it popularly called "the picket fence," rods silhouetted like picket posts against the evening gloaming.

My first experience was standing almost on the end of the line of half a dozen fishermen, between a silent Maori youth and a garrulous old chap who talked to his neigbour about rugby. Not being a rugby fan of any sort, I tuned him out and watched the sun setting across the lake, over the Western Bays. Harder to tune out was the old chap's line as he cast. He cast with total minimum of effort, as befitted his years, which meant his fly only just cleared the surface. The line swished and hummed distressingly close over head, occasionally directly between us. Once I distinctly felt the breeze of it passing on my ear.

This time was better, the current was running parallel to the beach, unlike last time, and fishermen were well spaced along the beach. Walking to the end of the line, I entered the water and began to cast a #8 orange bodied rabbit of my own making. The lake is much warmer than the rivers, standing up to my waist wearing my usual swim trunks was no hardship. Usual practice here is to use a sinking line, cast up and across the current, then fish the fly on the swing. After a summer of using the delightfully agile 5wt floating line, the 8wt sinking tip line felt like a tow rope, both to cast and to handle. My poor 5 wt rod did a brave job of coping with the liberty I was imposing on it, and I tried not to over stress it by casting too far.

In an hour and a half I caught no fish, lost three flies and broke the point and barb off one. I also saw half a dozen good sized ones, including one that leapt, then leapt again a scant fifteen feet in front of me, towing a length of line from it's jaw. This caused a hurried check of my line to see if I have inadvertently hooked it without being aware of it, as sometime happens. No such luck. Undoubtedly the fish were there for the taking, and the sunset across the lake was as beautiful as only a Taupo sunset can be, but still I missed the bush hemmed river and dancing fantails and the solitude.