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.

Tight Lines and the Art of Farming

We finally got out on the water to see how our skills match up with with what is called the "Upper Graduate" type of fly fishing in New Zealand.  Through the conversations we've had and the literature we've read, we had mentally prepared ourselves for a tough road of humbling failure.  New Zealand is a place where the conditions are always difficult, requiring long casts, impeccable accuracy, long leaders, lots of wind and rain, and maybe most importantly, stealth.  Having not experienced the fishing and all of the factors that go into it, we didn't know exactly what to expect.  The anticipation of actually driving to a river was unbelievably great.

The first river we fished was the Broken River, a rainbow trout fishery notorious for 1-3 pound fish.  We figured it would be a perfect warmup for us and it was relatively close to where we have been staying for the last few days.  The girls joined us as well and all five of us piled into their Toyota Vitz, which you could equate to a two door speck, only this one has four doors.  Needless to say, it wasn't the most roomy vehicle to ride a decent distance in.  On top of the long drive, we soon find out that there is a 20 km dirt road that leads to the river.  In most situations, this road would had been fine.  As far as gravel roads go, it was in great shape.  The Vitz, however, has the clearance similar to a wet piece of toilet paper.  We were going roughly 10 mph the entire way and bottomed out when straddling golf ball sized rocks.  Each way tacked on another 2 hours each way, which definitely cut into our fishing time.  But, sure enough, slow and steady wins the race and we got there.  After another mile and a half of easy road hiking and one decently lengthy and steep decent down to the river, we removed our rods from their tubes and began rigging up.

The Broken River was gorgeous.  It definitely had some glacial melt as could be seen by the cloudy, turbid waters.  It definitely remained mostly clear, but gave us a bit of an advantage, as we could stand a bit closer to the fish when stalking them.  It didn't take long for us to start hooking fish, however, these fish were averaging around 10-14 inches.  I have to give them credit, though.  They were strong, healthy fish that thought they were twice as big.  I'm not sure I have ever fought a 12 inch fish that has ripped line from my reel in this manner.  Though, these weren't the fish we had come to New Zealand to catch, we got a good warm up, shook off the rust and, if anything, built our confidence a bit.  Between the three of us, we probably brought around 20 fish to hand.  Not too shabby for the first outing.

We spent the next couple days searching for a vehicle to buy so we could begin our journey.  After searching online through multiple websites and visiting a couple car dealerships, we finally found what we were looking for.  A really cheap vehicle, with 4 wheel drive with a diesel engine.  We were soon introduced to our Nissan Torrano, or better known as: The Dirty Dog.  It could definitely be classified under the "beater" category, however, it runs and I guess that is all that really matters.  One draw back is it doesn't have a stereo, so we will either have to warm up the vocals or more realistically, will rig up a mount for Les' iPod speakers on the dash.

About a month or so ago, I contacted Chappie Chapman, who is a well known guide in the area.  He was referred to us by our buddy Jesse Robbins, who we are finding out is a legend around these parts.  We felt is was important to have a day with him to learn how to spot fish and any techniques that we were not familiar with in the States.  He picked us up on Thursday and we headed south to the Ashburton River.  Chappie is definitely a character.  He has a story for any situation and is just an overall great guy.  We picked his brain on the hour and a half drive to the river and learned quite a bit just in the car ride.  When we got there, we rigged up, I strapped on the pack with all of the lunches and water and started walking.

It was amazing watching Chappie work.  His ability to spot fish is unbelievable.  It definitely taught us to take our time and really scan a piece of water.  Most of the fish we actually spotted and fished to, we probably would've walked right on by had we been on our own.  The next thing we learned and kept learning throughout the trip was, in the words of Jesse Lance Robbins, to "wait longer" on our hook sets.  There is a phrase in New Zealand that is famous for anglers to say when a fish eats your dry fly.  "God save the queen".  In theory when a fish comes up and eats your fly, and you say this phrase, it will allow for enough time for the fish to close his mouth around the fly and ensure a successful hook set.  I was the first out of the three of us to get an eat and I think I got to "Guh" when mentally saying "God save the queen" and ripped the fly right out the fish's mouth.  I don't think the fish even broke the water's surface before I violently pulled the fly off the water.  This happened two more times and a couple of times with Les and Zach before we finally got our first fish.

The major difficulty, on this particular trip, was the wind.  The "Norwesters", which is a wind that parallels the rivers, making it extremely difficult to cast accurately, were in full force.  We've all casted in the wind, but normally, it is the type of wind that may die down after awhile.  This wind was relentless.  If anything it progressively got stronger and more mischievous.  Les hooked the first fish after waiting for what seemed like an eternity to set the hook.  It was a nice maybe 2-3 pound brown.  It felt good to actually see a quality fish in the net after missing so many previously.  I was really pumped for Les.  It was amazing how much fun it was to see the fish spot the fly, engage and engulf.

As soon as the winds got almost unfishable, we back tracked, hopped in the truck and rerouted to a different creek that holds an impressive amount of big browns.  Chappie wouldn't disclose the name of the creek, however, when they get this good, I probably wouldn't tell you anyway.  Ha!  We walked upstream for a bit and started spotting fish.  It took another little bit to get the fish to eat or to not spook the fish we were fishing to due to inaccurate casts caused by rusty casting and fierce gusts of wind.  Les hooked his second of the day, which was a beauty.  Right around 5-6 pounds.

The day concluded with another gorgeous fish rising in this little slick behind a submerged branch.  The sun was right in the fish's eyes, so we were able to sneak in pretty close.  It took a solid 30-40 minutes to entice this fish with a good half dozen different flies.  On the sixth presentation, the fish followed it down stream and ate.  In my head, I was screaming, "DON'T FARM IT!! (For the non fisherman, To Farm is to set the hook too early and miss the fish) DON'T FARM IT!!! WAIT LONGER!!! GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!!!"  Sure enough, with what seemed like 5 seconds after the eat, I set the hook, only to find my line tight and alive.  The fish was much bigger than I thought he was.  I got him to the net and Chappie estimated him to be roughly 6.5 to 7 pounds.  The adrenaline rush of catching something like this, especially after working so hard to get him, is unlike anything you can ever imagine.  It was a beautiful thing.

The day ended with a beer for each of us by the truck.  We shared some stories, had some laughs and reminisced on a great day on the water with a great guide.  Hopefully, what we learned from Chappie translates to the water for when we venture on our own.  We leave this morning to head south.  We will soon learn whether we know anything about catching trout in New Zealand.  My confidence is high, however, I am mentally prepared for a humbling learning curve.