My earliest trout fishing experiences were
in the South Island of New Zealand and confined primarily to dry-fly
fishing with some wet-fly fishing thrown-in, mostly in genteel
waters. The culture shock I experienced the first time I tried
to fish the Tongariro River, on the Central Plateau of the North
Island, in winter was immense.
There was just so much water. Deep and wide – and
moving at a great rate of knots. I tried nymphing with a complete
lack of success. Everything was happening too fast. This coupled
with the fact that I was experiencing great trouble trying to
cast heavy nymphs led to very frustrating days. Added to my problems
was the fact that in South Island style I did not use indicators
– and it soon became obvious that what I thought were heavy nymphs
were not heavy enough.
My futile attempts to catch fish and the frustration
that grew out of it, led me to try another method, so I turned
to wet lining –using a fast-sinking shooting head to toss wet-flies
slightly up and across stream, then let the fly swing. This was
much easier to manage and soon I started to catch fish – especially
when I learned how to tell if my fly was on or very near the bottom.
John Milner, then owner of the Anglers Paradise
Motel in Turangi (on the banks of the Tongariro), became my wet-lining
mentor. In the early days I would return tired and fishless to
be greeted by the question – no, not ‘how many fish’ – but "how
many flies did you lose?" John went on to explain that to
be successful at catching fish in the region during the winter
trout runs the fly had to be the bottom for the maximum time.
If the fly was near the bottom, then it stood to reason that it
would catch on the rocks, sticks, and snags waiting there for
this very purpose. At first it seemed to me that John’s interest
in the number of flies I lost was mere greed – he sold me most
of the flies I used.
I soon learnt that if the fly was spending the right
amount of time near the bottom, I should expect to lose at least
10 or more flies in a day – but be rewarded for this loss with
the capture of more fish. As soon as I learnt how to lose more
flies I began to catch fish.
Getting the fly down needed some quick action. I
would cast across the river and slightly upstream of where I stood.
As soon as the line landed on the water, it was time to throw
as big an upstream mend as possible, followed by a kind of roll-casting
of backing line out towards the fly line. This introduced slack
into the system allowing time for the deep end of the shooting-head
to sink, pulling the fly down with it. Then it was a matter of
waiting for the fly to swing across the current back to my side
of the river. Often the line would come up tight, and most often
the fly would be snagged, but often enough the ‘snag’ would bolt
away pulling line behind it.
Gaining some experience on the water by wet lining,
and learning something of the ways of that water, reinforced by
actually starting to catch fish on a regular basis, lead me to
try nymphing again.
I fooled about trying to cast heavy nymphs with
a fuzz-ball of an indicator, but largely wasted my fishing time.
I became an expert at hooking up to the back of my fishing vest,
my hat, the back of my waders, undergrowth on the bank behind
me, and generally failing to send the nymphs even remotely in
the direction of, and to the distance required, to reach where
the fish might be holding. Frustration time again.
So I stopped wasting time, sought some advice, and
practiced on dry land with heavy nymphs with the barbed part cut
off. Slowly but surely I got better.
Now able to cast the nymphs somewhere near the right
direction and getting close to the right distance, the next learning
curve reared up in front of me. It was all very well to get the
nymphs far enough ahead of the probable lie, but getting them
down to the bottom in front of the fish became my next problem.
So I learned the necessity of throwing the first
upstream mend above the nymph as soon as humanely possible – that
being always about five seconds faster than my actual skill levels.
But I soon learned that getting as much slack line upstream of
the fly ("mending") as soon as possible was critical.
It did not matter if I put too much slack above the fly early
in the drift of the fly-line – it is far easier to remove slack
from on top of fast flowing water, than to put slack in. Especially
when it takes very little movement of the fly line to pull the
nymph up off the bottom. Once the nymph comes up from the bottom
it is very hard, mostly impossible, to get it back down again.
As my skills grew I began to recognise a good drift
by the regular small bobs made by the indicator as the fly made
contact with the bottom. That spurred me to learn how to maximise
the time the nymph spent close to the bottom, and of course reinforce
the lesson that getting in that first early mend was critical
to the drift of the fly that would follow.
Just like the early days wet-lining I learned to
judge my success at getting the fly to the bottom by the number
of nymphs I lost in a days fishing. As the number of lost flies
went up so did the number of trout I began to catch.
Again in those early heavy-nymphing days I would
strike at any and all twitches of the indicator, heaving back
on the rod in a full radial arc, while pulling down hard on the
line. This guaranteed a good solid hook-set in the jaws of each
and every rock, stick and snag the poor nymph was passing. I soon
learned that in this fierce water striking like that was pretty-much
a waste of time and flies. And once a very good way of putting
too much bend in a rod – way too much. I re-learned just how far
shards of graphite can fly when a rod is placed under too much
stress – expensive explosive lesson.
There was another lesson in there about the general
silliness of striking with full bluster. If you swing the rod
back in an arc with the rod tip ending up way behind your head,
and you have pulled down on the line to a full arm stretch, just
what the heck are you going to do next? The fish is bolting through
the water, slack is getting in the system and you are standing
there with your arms pointing in opposite directions looking for
all the world like a John Travolta imitation from Saturday Night
fever, (for those who can remember that far back).
I also learned that the amount of time my nymphs
spent in likely lies was a strong determining factor in my success
rate. Spending time tying on new leaders and nymphs was wasting
that time. So I tried to pick the difference between a trout stalling
the indicator in the water from the assorted inanimate creatures
that slowed the nymph’s progress.
In fact it seems to me that most fish are already
hooked by the time that fact is transferred through the leader
pulling the indicator down. If the fish is not hooked then it
is too late anyway, and you may as well let the fly drift on down
as you ready for the next cast.
Successfully fishing the Central Plateau region
of the North Island in winter is reliant on the angler’s ability
to get a fly or nymph as close to the bottom as possible, for
as long as possible. Two things, the regular loss of flies or
nymphs, and the hooking of more fish provide proof that you are
achieving this aim. You cannot have one without the other. So
when you hook up on the snag-fish yet again, be happy, at least
you know your fly is in the right place, and a trout is that much
closer to biting.