New Zealand
10 - 25 January

It's been a while since my last report and we are now on the South Island. Arriving in Christchurch we decided to travel the East Coast via Hanmer Springs which is inland, and is the source of several rivers. Part way there we stopped over at a place called Culverden, little more than a cafe, a chip shop and, of course, a motel where we stayed, but the Hironui river flows by and the road leading to the upper reaches goes from here, so it was ideal as far as I was concerned.

The road to the upper reaches was spectacular, 48 kilometres of which 22K were gravel. "B" has put teeth marks in the dash as it was very bendy, narrow and with steep drops, oh and about 6 ford crossings of streams. The river gorge was terrific. In the winter it has a run of quinnat (Chinook) salmon and sea trout. The sea run browns, as the kiwi's like to call them are in the river now and were supposed to be that far up. The weather was bright and sunny, but and it's a big but, the winds up there were gale force N. Westerlies, which means it was blowing downstream and impossible tofly fish. BUGGER!!!!

Next day down in Culverden it was again sunny with little or no wind, so off we set again to the upper reaches. When we arrived there it was again blowing a gale, so we spent the day exploring and driving to remote Lake Taylor. This North Westerly is the kiss of death for fly-fishing so we decided to miss out Hanmer Springs and head to the coast.... to a place called Kaikoura where we went on a whale-watching trip.

The weather was fantastic, bright blue cloudless skies and gentle breezes. The whales (sperm whales by the way) were brilliant, something I have always wanted to see from an early age. It may sound bizarre but when I was maybe three or four years old I remember going to somewhere in Stoke and seeing a real preserved whale on the back of a truck, and this memory has given me a desire to see one for real. In fact we saw three altogether, giving us time to go and find a pod of dusky dolphins. I say a pod, there were hundreds of them and to round the trip off we also saw fur seals and albatrosses.

The following day was equally nice weather-wise so we went to the beach as "B" likes to sunbathe. The water in the bay was flat calm when we arrived and as we sat down I thought I saw a swirl close in. Anyway I kept a close watch and sure enough it happened again, but in a different spot and this time I could see the fish and they were large, maybe 7 or 8 lbs. I was not the only one to spot the action... as a couple of guys appeared with spinning rods. Now I always keep the fly rod in the car.... but, because we were nowhere near a river I had left it at the mote. Anyway some of these fish we caught and I had missed out on the action. All that night I kept thinking of these fish and planning to target them next day.

Back to the same spot the next day, although the sun was shining it was windy and the sea was choppy. No sign of any fish today, sod it I thought, but I had a go anyway, using a small plastic smelt imitation. Although retrieving was difficult in the surf I did manage to catch a small fish, which put up a hell of a scrap for its size. I don't know the species yet, but I was made up as it was my first saltwater fly caught fish. I did hook one more, which dropped off and had a few more chase the lure through the waves. So although the big ones weren't around it was fun all the same.

Moving on to Picton on Queen Charlotte Sound and then inland again to Rai Valley. A lovely little river the Rai, very frustrating but fascinating at the same time. This small river had a good head of brown trout not huge but a good few were in the 2 to 3 lb range. I know I could see them. Now this river is crystal clear and slow flowing. The trout rather than lie in the current cruise up and down as though they were in still water. Also they didn't inhabit the clear stretches where a cast could be made but under the thick willows that lined most of both banks. Now the water looked to be about two feet deep, but was actually nearly up to my armpits with deeper holes, which were hard to distinguish. I tried this one day and frightened every fish for miles around.

For my next trick I tried creeping under the thick willows and stalking them, this worked really well. I managed to crawl and climb into a place and stand motionless as they cruised by browsing on something that looked like small strands of grass. Not knowing at the time what this grass was I stuck on the smallest dry fly I had got. Unable to cast under the tangle of branches I had to attempt a bow and arrow cast. This worked well enough, but the trout ignored it taking some "grass" inches away. Next trick, thinking my line might have put them off, I draped the line over a branch so that just the fly was touching the water only to find the same thing happening. I must have spent an hour and a half under those trees and saw dozens of trout feeding and it was fascinating. Later on that evening reading a book about the South Island fishing it made mention of the "willow grub" and all of a sudden it clicked, mentioning this to "B" she said "that's what fell on my towel while I was sunbathing".

I nearly forgot to mention a short session on the Pelorus River into which the Rai flows. It was daytime and I found a nice long run, couldn't spot any fish in the clear water but thought I'd tie on a couple of wet flies and fish across and down. To my surprise I saw a flash of silver and found myself attached to a rainbow. Not huge about a pound, but much appreciated all the same! Next day we were on the move again, like gypsies we are..... No fishing for a day or so as we were back on the coast again... but a day or so later we headed for the West Coast stopping for a couple of nights at Tapawera on the Motueka River. On the way there we took a short detour to visit Dovedale on the River Dove (I kid you not). Surprisingly the terrain was similar with rolling hills and rocky outcrops. Sadly the river wasn't. A couple of photo's and back on the road.

The Motueka is a large river with many tributaries, and there are many anglers access points, unfortunately that means many anglers have been there as well, making the few fish ultra-wary. I spent a day exploring these places and did not see a sign of a fish, but decided to try an evening session anyway. When we got there we had an hour of daylight left and there was a terrific hatch going on, but not a fish to be seen. Not to be put off I tackled up and waded across the river to some better water. Eventually I spotted a trout rising steadily. I waded up to it without scaring it and made my cast. It dropped a little short and the fish bow waved upstream and out of sight. Now the night was drawing in fast and I did see some more rises and even nearly trod on a two-pounder wading back across the shallows. It made me jump but I made the trout jump even more. Great evening and lesson learned - don't bother fishing in the daytime.

JULE