rambo graphic

I have regularly fished the Lake Taupo and the Turangi area for over 20 years now. Sometimes it is crowded, especially on weekends and around the times when it is generally held that trout make their spawning runs.

Stories of bad manners, altercations and worse, abound. However in over 20 years I have experienced very little true aggravation first hand. The few problems encountered tended toward bad manners rather than belligerence. Usually the bad manners resulted from the lack of knowledge of novice fishers. A quiet word or two, and the problem was invariably rectified.

I contend that to expect to fish waters as famous as the Tongariro, Tauranga-Taupo, and all, in some sort of solitude during the Winter (May – August) main spawning runs is to expect the impossible. It is a fact of fishing life that these waters are crowded during the spawning runs. In any case the style of fishing during the runs does not necessarily lend itself to the solitary fishing situation. It is more akin to the shoulder to shoulder fishing found at the river mouths during salmon runs in the South Island.

Rather than aggravation I usually find a camaraderie born from anglers standing up to their shrivelled testimonials in freezing water relentlessly casting through refrigerated, often wet air, to the hope of a fish.

Despite the above, two occasions arose where my aggravation at the actions of other anglers became intense. Intense, but impotent. Both these occasions were at one of the river mouths on Taupo. You will see from what follows why I am not going to name exactly where. It would be an unwarranted libel on a beautiful place.

On each occasion I was fishing in the company of a friend just to the side of the rip. Both times we met with some success, but our hopes of further success were ruined by the intrusion of two large balaclava and oilskin clad men who waded out alongside us and then moved directly in front of us. Their intent, backed with silent brooding menace was clear, get out of the water. On both occasions their menace succeeded in meeting their aims.

Years ago, far too many years ago, in my front-row rugby playing prime I may have protested, but probably not. The explicit intent of violence of this pair, plus their six foot plus size, would make the outcome less than certain. I believe that in a fight someone is always going to get hurt. If there existed a possibility that it was going to be me, I demurred. Now in my corpulent soft dotage, when faced with violence the choice between fight or flight is an instant decision, flight.

At the end of September I was once again standing alongside the rip at the river mouth. I had caught and released one fish when I was joined by a man of perhaps fifty. My then age. We exchanged pleasantries and fished on.

I noticed two things about my new companion. He spoke quietly, with a soft English accent of indeterminate county, but with the resonance of someone who knew how to manage people. The second thing of note was despite the fact that he was only about 5 foot eight or so, a couple of longish inches shorter than me, he had the solid build of someone who knew hard physical work. Not the short brutish build of the Tyson ilk, but the solid power of someone who knew and had used the limits of his body. His voice and body, his whole demeanour hinted at someone who knew authority, his authority.

We each caught a couple of fish over the next hour or so, when the quiet of the afternoon was broken by the sound of a broken-muffler, rusting van. I knew the sound, and turning round my dread was confirmed. The terrible twosome arrived.

Out they sploshed, first around us and then across directly in front of us. They did not acknowledge us in any way, never making eye contact. They began casting, so close in front of us that we were in danger from their back casts.

Now used to the game, I started to reel in as I turned to leave the water. My retreat was interrupted by a muffled oath. I turned to see one of the terrible two, the one directly in front of my companion, holding the back of his head, obviously hit by a hard hurled fly. The balaclava turned, and he strongly suggested that my new acquaintance should become quickly interested in sex and travel, or he would become a sick man.

The reply to this threat was quiet, authoritative and without trace of immediate menace. It strongly suggested that the man in front was in the most danger. This quiet explanation of the fact of this little slice of life was reinforced by another hard flat cast that ripped a fly at high speed toward the balaclava, which ducked sideways avoiding impact. At the same time, the oilskin body lurched forward fist raised.

I hardly saw the fist move, and I am sure the balaclava did not see it, until his nose, lip and probably some teeth, disintegrated. He did not fall into the water, just slid under. The other, screaming obscenities, dropped his rod and lurched over to help his accomplice. When he had pulled him to his wobbly sodden feet, he hurled himself fists flailing at my unmoving and seemingly unmoved companion.

The result was an instant replay of the first. A short sledge hammer chop of a blow smashed into the face of the other terrible twin and down he went. His legs did not have time to buckle or fold. He just went wooden-plank stiff and slid quietly back into and then under the water.

The first man hit lurched forward again, and down he went. This time clutching his eye and the now well split eyebrow, bleeding profusely.

Soon the now trembling, much less than terrible two, stood in front of their assailant holding their heads, in clear submission.

In the now quiet afternoon, and even though I was standing twenty yards back transfixed by this episode, I could clearly hear the quiet, firm message the wet two received.

"I have only been in this country a few months. I came here because I thought it was quiet and peaceful, something my life has lacked for the last thirty years, fighting the sort of terrorism you two bastards represent, but do not understand. I need you two to understand very clearly that you will not fish in this piece of water again. If you do you will be dealt with in the same way. You could get hurt again. You two have no idea of the real violence that can result from your actions, you are simply mindless brutes who have the totally mistaken belief that your might is your right. I want you to leave now, leaving your rods in the water. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," they mumbled.

"Yes, sir," he emphasised.

"Yes, sir," they intoned, heads lowered.

"Pull back your balaclavas, look me in the eye, and say yes sir," he quietly insisted.

"Yes, sir," they replied, heads now bare, but unable to make and hold eye contact for more than a mere cowering moment.

The two stumbled out of the water, heads lowered, and departed.

"What the hell, were you into?" I asked, shell shocked by what I had seen.

"It does not matter," he replied quietly, and sadly, "I thought it was behind me, and maybe it still can be."

 Violence is the tactic of people with too narrow a vision

With that he wandered out of the water, up the beach and off to where ever was his home.

I returned to my car, shed my fishing gear and sat in the car, doing my imitation of a stunned mullet.

The first testosterone driven thoughts were questions. Why couldn’t I do that? Pure unadulterated envy. In all of us, blokes of us anyway, is the Rambo urge. The urge to meet unbridled menace with a sudden effective demonstration of hidden power. The little guy against the big and ugly. The older one gets, the more this Rambo dream grows. I guess it grows in direct proportion to the decline in the body’s actual ability to turn the dream into reality.

There are those, fish and non-fishers perhaps, who believe fishing is violent. It is man against fish. But man against man? It is not. At least it should be not.

Unfortunately there are also those who believe that the fish and fishing, is for them alone. In the time and the place of their choosing. They back this belief with sullen glowering menace and the promise of violence.

As I sat in the car contemplating what I had seen the male hormone flush subsided and the sadness of the episode intruded. Why, in this most non-violent of quiet sports, should this type of event occur?

I have few answers to this query or similar questions, and duck for the cover of putting it down to the times in which we live. Whatever this means. Maybe my excuse for inaction, is bred from an ageing body, a quieter temper, and the certain acute knowledge of my physical limitations. Bolstered perhaps by my dogma that I did my bit for God, Queen and country, against the perceived aggressors of my younger times.

There is a message in this little drama however. Every time we are forced from the water by the boorish, or belligerent, those of us who chose to walk rather than fight, can perhaps quietly wait until David pops up to meet Goliath. A David, or Rambo will pop up, sometime, somewhere. It is a very big wheel indeed that does not turn full circle.

But there is still some disquiet in me. I abhor violence. It is the tactic of people with too narrow a vision. I guess my unease is summed up by Karl Krause (1874-1936):

"In battle, first one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one realises that he too is suffering; in the end, one is not surprised that everyone has lost."

Nymph

Note for overseas readers:

"Crowded" as used in the opening paragraph of this story is a relative term. We are talking here of ‘crowded’ meaning 5 or 6 anglers on a pool 200 to 400 metres long. This on one of the more popular pools at the height of the spawning runs

Custom Search

link to Fishing News



image link to web log


graphic link to all fly-fishing articles index

Viva wet fly

My Topsites List




Rainbow trout image