I think we landed five fish that first evening, all fat, silvery lake fish, light on spots and tall through the body. The last couple of fish had been taken hard against the bank well after the best of the light had gone. The lake surface now only reflected the sky above and hills to the west and sight fishing should have been impossible but, as the big browns carelessly finned their way in over the flooded ground, there just wasn’t enough water to hide them. As they cruised they pushed a smooth bow wave ahead of them which gave away their position and direction, only stopping every now and then breaking the surface with their tail and dorsal fin as they poked around in the grass to eat. The only change needed was a shortening of the dropper under the dry fly to about 3 inches, to be sure the nymph was visible in mid water and not sinking to be lost in the grass. It added a new level of excitement and a depth to the fishing that New Zealand so often delivers. Just when the fishing opportunities should have been exhausted or at least limited to blind flogging, it delivers a new experience to keep you from succumbing to hunger pain.

The next morning started with a drive of about an hour, which was made a few kilometres longer by the need to head down to the farmhouse and deliver the bottle of rum. The house was set back from the road, surrounded by tall trees and a driveway lined with poplars. I found the owner of the property standing in an old shed next to a couple of smashed tractor parts, apparently the cost of carving a living out of a dry, shingle and rock landscape. In a short conversation I had commented on my surprise at how dry the property looked and that it hadn’t seen the benefits of the heavier than usual summer rain, only to be met with a contemptuous expression and the words “What shingle?!” So after detailing my complete lack of understanding of the farmers livelihood and a quick catch up on the year between visits and stories of annoying fishermen that keep asking for a key…. we headed off back up the valley. As it turned out we didn’t need the key to get in, one of the farm hands was on his way out at the same time, but we would need it to get out at the end of the day, unless we decided not to leave, and fish the river forever.

It was just as I remembered it, not that I expected it to be anything else. The thought that the river and the trout that held in its steady current had remained seemingly unchanged for the past year was comforting. We get so used to change in our day-to-day lives that we forget that in places like this, it just doesn’t. The most dramatic change on a river would seem trivial by comparison, maybe a shift in it’s course over the winter, but even that was not the case here. The river seemed to bleed from the ground further up the valley and as the water gathered the river kept on moving down collecting more flow and then, there it was. Wide in sections but for the most part only 15-20 feet across, cold with deep pools and shallow runs, it was about as near to perfect as I have found. Small by any standard but particularly by NZ standards, I haven’t found another river quite like it. It curves its way through largely level ground with just enough gradient to provide kilometres of perfect run and pool sections. With some areas of open tussock water and others with heavy cover in the willows, shots can be long and clear or tight to the extreme, either way, what follows is always the same, this is fly fishing’s version of cage fighting. In this scaled down environment almost every fish is no more than a few feet away from a deeply undercut bank or the twisted mess of a streamside willow. And while this playing field was small, the trout, unlike the goldfish in the bowl, have not been limited by the size of their home, they are big, healthy fish.

As we fished our way upstream, we found fish in most of the likely spots, nosing over drop offs and in the folding water on the edges of current lines. They weren’t always easy but if you got it right first time they were hungry and proved to be in extremely good condition with powerful runs toward cover that required a quick counter in order to keep them out of it. They were consistent all day and were not particularly fussy as to what they wanted to eat rather they were more concerned with how it came to them. In this regard, it is an asset to have the ability to cast longer leaders in the 14-15 foot range, it delivers greater tolerance in leading the fish and also provides for slightly longer presentation up in front of the fish, which is particularly important when looking to feed them a nymph. With short lines and gently flowing water it is far more important to set the hook based on the behaviour of the fish rather than waiting for any unnatural movement of the indicator. If you’re lucky, you’ll see their mouth flash bright white to inhale the fly, but more often than not it’s not quite as clear cut. A strike timed to a sideways movement and straightening into the current, at the same time you expect you fly to be in the zone, can more often be rewarded. Coming up tight in response to a subtle movement of the fish is seriously rewarding, probably added to by the pleasant surprise that comes with it. When fishing a dry and you get the eat, you expect to come up tight, he just ate the fly right, that’s it, done deal. However, when you half expect to set the hook because, at best, you “ reckon’ ” he ate it, it just gets better. Because you made the cast, because now you’re hooked up, because you worked it out and picked up that faintest of movements that could so easily have bought that fish the time it needed to spit it out.

It had been a great day, but it felt like we had earned it, and I was pretty exhausted by the time we started back down stream towards the car. It was a long and mostly quiet walk back, with little said and at times some distance between us as we made our way back along the fence lines and through the paddocks. When we ventured close enough to the river there were optimistic glances at the water in the hope of a spooked fish returning to feed in the softening light of early evening. The wind picked up pushing through the long grass and willows and cooled the water soaked into my trousers providing some relief from the effort of the walk. I was glad I had chosen to wet wade, it had been a hot day and I was ready for a beer.