Fly Girl’s Blog-
This blog is simply an extract taken from my journal on return from fishing the Taupo / Turangi area, not long after I’d taken up fly fishing. The region had been recently flooded, and a day on the Whakapapa – even with a local contact – had produced absolutely no fish at all. Our friend J was suicidal about this, and so as compensation took us the next day to a fabulous little river which he normally keeps to himself, so I won’t name out of respect to him.
The third and last day out was a trophy day. A beautiful, beautiful sky and a perfect piece of water. I caught the first fish, a freckly 4-pound rainbow. He was a real character, persistently sticking his head under rocks in an effort to avoid being bought in. He gave me a real laugh. He was so pretty, and I was so pleased to have caught a fish. Spotty was the drought-buster, and the rest of the day DH and I had fabulous fun catching everything from 2.5 – 6 pound fish. I caught the biggest of the day, and DH picked one up on dry fly. There was also a brilliantly suspenseful moment when he cast a Royal Wulff to a sighted fish in a crystal-clear pool. The fish swung round to take it and had actually sucked down the fly when DH struck…and pulled the fly from his mouth!
My favorite fish of the whole trip was one I dub ‘scarlet’ in my mind, because his gills and side-stripe were a vivid red. He was about 5-pounds and very noisily feeding in a riffle that I was sweeping with my flies.
It was late in the afternoon, and because we were in a gully, banked by a cliff on one side and deep bush on the other, it was quite dark and cooling off fast in the pool. J was winding up after a long day wading, rock-hopping and playing ghillie for us. There was no time to change the rig and I was still wet and a bit cold from a dunking earlier on, but I hadn’t caught a fish in the last couple of hours, and I wanted just one last exhilarating hook-up and landing to see me through until the next trip. So I keenly took position on a rock on the bank of the riffle and began casting my double-nymph rig upstream to the feeders coming down from some boulders.
After a few casts with no action, and moving incrementally upstream, there was a sudden splash in front of me. A fish, and actively feeding. I cast. Nothing. Another splash! This one was clearly pretty hungry. Our friend whistled to me and indicated it was time to go as the light was sinking fast, but I said “J, there’s a fish feeding here, just give me a couple more casts.” He nodded and understood.
I inched forward and launched the nymphs into the feeder that was sending food right down the guts of the riffle. It was a good cast. I watched the strike indicator as if hypnotised, tensed and poised ready to jerk back on the line the minute it did anything unusual. “C’mon fish,” I murmured under my breath. “C’mon.”
Seconds passed. The yellow strike indicator bobbed and swirled with the eddies of the riffle, drifting slowly but surely through the feed zone. Out the corner of my eye, I noticed mayflies emerging and taking haphazard flight. This fish still ought to be interested in nymph patterns, but he sure was having fun taking insects off the surface. My arm was hurting from casting continuously for three days, and my back was tensing painfully, but I did not shift my position. I was learning how all-important a good strike was.
Then, under the dark surface of the cold, clear water, there was a tug on my line – bump, bump. In less than a breath I pulled back on my rod arm and brought the hook home. The fish was on! “Yes! Yes!” I cried triumphantly as the trout sped away from me downstream. As DH scrambled over rocks towards me, I became utterly focused on three things: keeping tension on the fish, staying upright on the slippery rocks, and getting my spare line back on the reel.
I held my rod high and switched it to my left hand in order to reel in line. Fortunately the fish was energetic and cranky, and took off so fast he picked most of it up for me. I let him take as much as he wanted, afraid of getting loops hooked around rocks, my feet or the back of the reel. I couldn’t keep much pressure on him with my arm alone, as he felt like a strong, sizable creature, so I put the butt of my rod into my stomach and frantically wound the last loops of line onto the reel.
That done, my St Croix rod took over, arcing gracefully over the water as I attempted to find a foothold. Our friend said “You’re going to have to go downstream with him” which is easier said than done on slippery boulders. I used my right hand to get a grip on a rock as I kept up the pressure with my left, tiring rapidly.
Fortunately the fish, when he reached the tail of the pool, seemed to think twice about heading further downstream. Perhaps he’d been in a fight with a bigger fish down there, who knows. But he did an about-turn and headed straight for me. I stood upright and wound slack line on as fast as my reel could take it, desperate to keep the tension between the fish and me.
The fish paused, canted left and jumped once, twice. We all gasped at his beautiful blaze of red, J exclaiming at the colour of him. He sped away again and the reel sang out exuberantly “ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz!”
My arms ached with the load of bringing this fish to bay. I put a steep bend in the Saint and hauled the fish to the surface so we could see the silver flash of his belly before he once more dove to the depths of the dark pool. I had to tire him out before me. J leaned in as far as he could with the net, but each time I brought the panting fish towards him, it would turn and wriggle down into the water, taking my line with it. I spun the handle of the reel, towing line and lifting the Saint so that the fish was dredged up to the surface. I bent the rod sideways to ease him towards the bank where J could net him.
At last my beautiful fish was bound between the folds of the net, gasping and flexing. His gills were crimson, his back mossy green and speckled down to his tail, his fins a translucent burgundy. J carefully pulled the Cadillac pattern free from the corner of his mouth, and after wetting my hands lifted him for a photo. Beneath the slippery protective mucous coating I could feel his power. I never knew I could feel so strongly about a fish; I thought he was utterly beautiful, but that he was suffering at my hand. As quickly as I could I took careful hold of him while DH took a photo, and J held the net underneath in case he wriggled free.
I don’t know why it’s so important for me to hold the fish in my hands. It does the poor trout no good at all, but I simply must do it otherwise the process is incomplete. From casting the fly to releasing the fish – it’s all a step by step process, the climax being that moment when I lift the fish in my hands. I don’t feel any urge at all to possess it, overpower it or hurt it, let alone kill it, but unless I can feel it, it isn’t done right. Apart from insects, I can’t think of any animals more remote from ourselves than cold-water fish, but my! what a passion they’ve started in me.
After the photo, during which my glorious trout – as with all his companions on this magical river– kept still and obedient in my hands, I released him. He didn’t take long to revive, and I felt the stiff muscles flex and contract in his tail as he slipped free and bent for the bottom. I’ve caught bigger trout since so it’s hard to say what it was that made that day so memorable – perhaps the darkening forest and the wild river, or the timing of a much-wanted fish on the very last cast of the day.
I was cold, wet and sore, but inside I radiated joy at the thrill of my trout, my scarlet, noisy boy jumping in the gloom of that pool. And I still do.
Fly Girl
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