Paper Covers Rock

When we were last in Christchurch to pick up a buddy of Les', Matt, I received a request to Skype with Chappie Chapman, whom we hired as a guide in our first week in New Zealand.  Of course, I answered and we began chatting and filling him in on our successes and our defeats as we made our way through the rivers of New Zealand.  Les had joined me pretty early on in the conversation and after we finished updating Chappie, he began advising us as to where we should head next.  Chappie is definitely one of those guys that has been around the game for a very long time and when he talks, you grab a pen and paper and start with the note taking.  He mentioned many of the rivers we were already planning on fishing, but then went on to talk about some rivers more off the beaten track, one of which he guaranteed a shot at a double digit (10+ lb.) fish.  Our ears perked a little at this bold statement and threw an extra underline under the name of this river.  The conversation went on for a shade under an hour, we demonstrated our gratitude for this information and said our good byes.

Once Matt arrived, we got organized and squeezed as much as we could into an already jam packed Dirty Dog (our vehicle) and set off with our compass pointing north.  We got to our campsite a couple hours before sunset, set up camp, made some bland, tasteless instant dinners, pounded some American whisky of the Wild Turkey and Makers Mark sort (compliments of Matt, Thank you), shared some laughs and went to bed.  In the morning, we made some breakfast and began discussing our plan for the next few days.  Because three people is already a crowd on a river, where all day you may see one fish, four people would be short of impossible.  We decided splitting up in twos was the smart plan, and once it was established who was fishing with who, we needed to decide who was fish where.

This brings me back to that conversation with Chappie.  This said creek, that he guaranteed a fish over 10 lbs. was in the vicinity.  Les and Matt were fishing together and I with Zach.  It came down to Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who got to fish this water.  One round.  Me vs. Les.  One... Two... Three... Shoot...  My paper covered his rock.  Double digits were ours.

Zach and I geared up for three days camping, and after a shade over 10 km hike, which we did in roughly two and a half hours, we were there.  It was a very seamless, effortless hike in.  However, the thoughts of our last extensive tramp to the Electric River still haunted us and the thought of a long hike with heavy packs with poor fishing in return was in the back of our minds.  It is a risk that you always take when exploring new water.  But, to our surprise, there was a nice, flat trail to follow, and when we got there, there was a perfect camping area equipped with fire pit, flat soft ground to pitch a tent, a stack of wood and a 4 lb. brown sitting happy as can be in the first pool right by camp.  How about that?  Too good to be true?  Nah.  It was about time lady luck started swaying our way.

The first day on the water was good, but not mind blowing.  We had some opportunities at some good fish.  Zach had a great afternoon, bringing in a 4 pounder and a  6 1/2 pounder.   I got somewhat owned, farming two fish and catching a 4 lb. brown after losing him at my feet and diving in after him, luckily grabbing him by the tail.  So, essentially, I got skunked with my fly rod, but went one for one when noodling.  Maybe I have a future in Hillbilly Hand Fishing.

Day two could simply be categorized by using one word: EPIC.  We walked to where we ended the day before and began spotting fish.  This day was much brighter, which made spotting borderline easy.  It seemed as though every pool we came up to, housed a big ol' boy lurking in the depths.  It also seemed as though the farther we walked, the bigger and the dumber the fish got.  I started out the day casting to a fish that was pushing 7 pounds at least.  I somehow farmed him when he ate my dry fly, after waiting what seemed like 2 seconds to set the hook, and he buggered, leaving me baffled and disgusted with myself.  I got redemption on another fish that seemed spooked when I spotted him.  We were approaching a pool from atop a 20 foot bluff and when I saw him, he was darting from the tail out and stopped in the shadows along an overhanging cliff face.  Most of the time, when a fish spooks, he vanishes like some sort of apparition.  This fish, however remained visible and, on top of that, appeared to be actively feeding on nymphs subsurface.  I tied on a dry dropper rig and casted to him.  On the second cast, he hammered the nymph.  I set the hook, causing him to thrash and leap out of the water as high as I've ever seen a brown trout jump.  Without exaggerating, this fish came all of 4 feet clear out of the water.  I thought he was false hooked because he tore upstream about 100 ft, ripping up spillways, not slowing down.  I chased him upstream, eventually tiring him out and resting him in my net.  He was, in fact, hooked in the mouth and one of the healthiest browns I've seen, weighing in at 5 3/4 pounds, with the heart of a lion.  It definitely ranks in as one of the most memorable fish to date.

The leaper.  This fish was a beast to land.

We continued on this trend of seeing bruiser after bruiser.  Not all of them ate our fly, but most of them did.  We had to get creative on a few fish, but in the end, it was an unbelievable day.  We didn't break the double digit mark, but we got pretty damn close.  The final tally consisted of two fish at 4 pounds, two at 5 pounds, a 5 3/4 pounder, a 6 1/2 pounder and the biggest totaling 8 pounds.  On top of that, we either missed or snapped off another 4-6 fish all in the same weight class or bigger.  Zach had a heart breaker, snapping off the one fish that may have broken the double digit mark.  But, in the end it was an unbelievable run on this creek.  Unforgettable.  

This is the 8 pounder under water.  Brown trout pout.

Big fish of the trip.  8 pounds right on the nuts.  Thick fish.

The last night we were there, we had saved all of the wood and our flasks of whisky to have either a victorious or a mournful bon fire depending on the amount of success we had on the river.  This night was definitely victorious.  We tested the burning of cow shit and it turns out that it does in fact burn.  It smells horrible when burned, but it did help us conserve our wood to make our fire last into the night.  We felt like true cowboys, collecting shit piles, basking in poop smoke.  It's all part of the adventure.

Drinking whisky, burning cow pies.

Career Day

We ventured to the Oreti River, which is notorious for big fish.  We met up with a guy we met when we were fishing near the Mavora lakes, Jeff, and he took us to where he had fished previously on the Oreti.  This stretch gets hammered pretty good, leading to very spooky and for lack of a better word, smart fish.  The weather forecast read "fine" which in New Zealand means sunny to mostly sunny.  However, we woke up early to solidify our spot on the river to find clouds and fog, which essentially ruins spotting conditions on the Oreti.  We sat for an hour or so, making our instant coffee, scoping out maps and sleeping off the previous late night at the bar in the front seat of the car.  The fog didn't lift and the clouds didn't clear and we eventually said, "Screw it, let's go fishing".

Les and Zach took the upper Patterson Bush Beat and Jeff and I started down the Lincoln Beat only to find shitty spotting conditions and very few fish.  There is so much good water on this stretch of river, however we were only able to see 10 feet of it at a time due to the poor visibility.  We battled for the first 3 or 4 hours, spooking the few fish we saw.  Eventually, I became a bit impatient and frustrated and told Jeff we either need to start blind fishing or sit down and wait for the sun to break so we can actually start spotting fish from a reasonable distance.  Up until then, we hadn't casted to a fish and the ones we did cast to, were one wrong presentation away from buggering downstream.

We stopped to have some lunch which consisted of 3 slices of aged cheese, hand shredded slow roasted chicken breast, incorporated into a dijon aioli, topped with a delicately laid layer of dijon mustard for presentation, of course, wrapped in a whole grain tortilla shell.  But, really what it consisted of was a tortilla with sharp cheddar cheese, or in Kiwi terms, "Tasty Cheese", canned dijon flavored mayonnaise chicken  plopped down onto an aggressive pile of whole grain mustard, mushed together and eaten as fast as it was made.  A pretty tasty meal, but lacking in the gourmet department.  This was eaten just after our amuse-bouche of tasty cheese and summer sausage eaten together in whole.  A great way to get the head right and regain the energy to battle poor conditions.

When we finished lunch, our luck turned and sun peeked through the clouds.  The grey slowly turned to blue and we all of a sudden had ideal fishing conditions with great spotting and low winds for accurate casts.  The fish started to come out of the wood work and we began to have opportunities at feeding fish.  This isn't to say that the fishing was easy.  If there was a doctorate degree given to fish with an emphasis of determining what was real and what was our fly, these fish would have walked with honors and proudly hung their plaque on the wall.  Aside from our experiences with trout feeding on willow grubs down south, these fish were by far the most technical to date.  I felt as though I was pulling all of the tricks out of the book.  I almost went midgy on their asses.  I would change up flies 7 or 8 times only to have them give me the middle fin and spook, leaving me speechless and heart broken.  But, we received more chances.

Jeff hooked into the first fish.  Of all of the flies for this fish to eat, he took no time in demolishing a peacock humpy.  He had this fish on for a minute or so, but ended with it throwing the hook leaving his line limp and his morale broken.  This did, however, give us hope that these fish would eat if we presented the right fly.  It's amazing what that glimmer of confidence will do to an angler.

 I have to give Jeff a ridiculous amount of credit for his ability to spot fish on this river.  Once the conditions improved, he spotted about 90% of the fish before they spooked.  I wish our fishing was as on point.  We kept walking and casted to a few more fish.  Still nothing.  Finally, we came upon a fish and spotted it late.  It didn't flee, however.  It stayed in its lane and continued feeding.  We slowly backed off and got into position to make a cast.  It was my turn to fish and I threw a few different flies at him and he didn't budge.  Didn't even twitch.  Showed no interest.  I attempted a "Bionic Bug", which is a local pattern, tied by a guy named Stu Tripney who owns Stu's Fly Shop in Athol.  The fly is a gigantic fly that doesn't really look like anything and has doll boggly eyes glued onto two foam posts.  This fly usually is a last resort and will sometimes induce a reaction strike with trout.  You plop it down near the fish and with all the commotion on the surface, it will sometimes cause the fish to react without thinking and it will engulf it.  Well, even though it worked in the past, this fish didn't have any interest.  At this point, we walked back up to the fish, even with its eyes and looked at it, just to make sure it was a fish we were fishing to.  Sometimes you are casting for a half hour to a rock without knowing it.  Once we saw it feed again, we backed off and reformulated our plan of attack.

This entire time I thought this fish was spooked, but when we saw the fish eat right in front of us, when any other normal fish would have been a 1/2 mile downstream by now, we knew we had a definite chance at hooking this fish.  I tied on a size 16 Shroeder's Caddis with a traditional, hare's ear soft hackle off the back, trailing about 2 1/2 feet.  On the first cast, the fish swung out and hammered the soft hackle.  I set the hook and my rod was bent.  From there the fight was on.

When I first started casting to him, I thought he wasn't that big.  Maybe 3 to 3 1/2 pounds.  Big back home, but average to below average in New Zealand.  I'm not gonna lie, we're starting to become a little spoiled.  He was a strong fish, however.  I was laying the hammer to him pretty good, but he wasn't budging very easily.  I eventually got him near shore to discover that this fish was enormous.  I beached him in some shallow water and Jeff jumped in behind him and tailed him.  We put him at all of 7 pounds and up until this point, marks the brown trout of my career.  It was an absolutely perfect fish and a perfect way to end a tough day.  It is a time like this that makes all of the patience and dedication worth it.  I could have quit and walked back to the car at that moment.

I'll remember this day forever.  I hope for the opportunity to one day top this fish by the time I leave New Zealand.  But, if not, 7 pounds is pretty damn good.

Zach also roped one in on the Oreti.  Right at 6 lbs.  Good on ya, mate!

Queenstown

First off, I apologize for the lack of posts.  Hopefully, I can get all of them in tonight, but otherwise, I will fill them in as I go.  Most of them are outdated, but stories nonetheless.

Onto Queenstown...

It's difficult to put down into words exactly what went down in Queenstown.  As Les so eloquently put it, "It took a month out of my wallet and a year off of my life."  We rolled into Queensotwn on a Monday and were immediately overwhelmed and stressed by the amount of people and cars swarming the streets.  You have to understand that the previous three weeks have not exactly been epitomized by "urban dwelling" or any human interaction for that matter.  We have stayed at a couple campsites or hostels along the way, but each were just a glorified, flatter piece of grass to pitch a tent than the rocky river beds we had previously called home.  Driving into Queenstown was every bit of a culture shock as it was for me visiting Minneapolis for the first time after living in Montana for a year or so.  Busy.

Queenstown initially didn't impress me.  I could confidently attribute that to the ridiculous stress level we had reached when having to deal with "one ways", pedestrian cross walks, round abouts and street lights.  You also have to remember that we are driving on the right side of the car and on the left side of the road, so everything is completely ass backwards.  We finally did find the hostel.  It was called the "Backpackers Lakeside".  The girls met us there and we planned for kind of a last hoorah for the five of us before we begin most of our back country trips and they continue on to do whatever it is they are going to do.  The hostel actually had rooms for $25 per person and the rooms had beds.  I hadn't slept in a bed for all of at least 3 weeks.  I'm not gonna lie, it felt pretty damn outstanding.  The hostel was right on the lake and about a 3 minute walk from downtown.  It was a pretty perfect location.  Queenstown slowly was winning back some points.

Because this town is so touristy and there really aren't too many good fishing options close to Queenstown, we decided to dedicate the next two days to living it up in the city.  This is where I cue my mother to stop reading.  Ha!

Instead of doing a play by play and reminiscing all of the seemingly poor decisions we made in the process, let me just try to describe the nights events in a few phrases.  Drinks were had, ear drums suffered, sleep was lost, fun was had and I pissed off a pier into the lake.

A few notable spots were riding the bull at the cowboy bar, which is about the most stereotypical American cowboy bar in New Zealand.  More American than most American bars in America.  We ate at Fergburger, which is open late night and is extra sloppy when consumed late at night.  Not sure exactly why.  Jesse Lance Robbins can rest assured that his record of two Big Al Fergburgers in one day is safe.  Nobody even attempted it out of pure fear of such a task.

We made friends with a Brit named Louis who ended our second night by taking us to a bar called the "Boiling Room" where they stay open until 4 am, and yes mother, we closed it down.  All of the other places were less memorable, however they all contributed to our less than desirable states come Wednesday.

Since Queenstown is the capital of extreme activities, we spent our final day jet boating in Shotover Canyon, just outside of town.  I was a little skeptical of the entire thing because it was damn expensive and it didn't seem like anything mind blowing.  However, I was soon proven wrong.  These jet boats hold about 12 people and they are essentially a giant wave runner.  They load you in wearing a poncho and a life jacket and take you full speed down this canyon that at times will maybe fit 1 1/2 of these boats wide.  The captain of this boat came within inches from hitting these sheer rock walls and then followed that by twirling his finger in the air to tell us to hold on for the 360 degree flip he's about to do.  I would recommend it to anyone traveling here to give that a go.  I didn't get to bungee jump, but on our way back through, I'm hoping to knock that one off the bucket list.

Overall, Queenstown was a blast.  It definitely dug a hole in the wallet a bit, but I don't regret any of it.  I can always catch up on sleep later.  I can't always party like an asshole in Queenstown.  You only live once, right?

I have to say, though, it did feel pretty nice getting back into the countryside and fall asleep under the stars on my sleeping pad as opposed to a mattress.  What made it better was ending our first day back on the water with the rod bent with a beautiful 4.5lb brown.  It kept our group's "no skunk" streak alive just a shade before dark.  Let's hope I didn't jinx it.  Who's got some wood I can knock on?