Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Dean Whaanga’

A Late Season Extravaganza!!! Yes Indeed…

April 28th, 2016 2 comments

CRANE-FLY-FISHING…

Earlier in the season while fishing with Dean Whaanga he told me about fishing the Crane Fly in his neck of the woods. He told me that it usually fires after the first frost late in the season and that he’d let me know when its happening. Recently he called to tell me “its on” and to invite me to join him the next day. Luckily, I wasn’t guiding so I was there with bells on. John Roach of the Canterbury Fly Fishing Club was in town so he came along too. I was excited to see and try this style of fishing which was pretty new to me. Fishing the crane fly, or daddy-long-legs as I prefer to call it, is well known on the Irish loughs but fishing them on NZ rivers is quite unique. I guess there are not too many rivers with a high enough crane fly populations around them that they get blown onto the river in sufficient numbers for trout to lock-on to them? A frosty start followed by a warm, breezy day is ideal. We didn’t get that, but the day warmed up a little and wind increased but there were not too many daddies about. Possibly due to the lack of a frost in the morning. For a while during the day there were a few on the surface and we saw a few rises. It was enough for me to see the potential of this type of terrestrial fishing. The trout seemed quite keyed in on daddies anyway because we all had a good few eats off the top. We landed two 6lbers, two 4lbers and lost 6 more! It’s always good to learn about a new way to catch a trout, particularly something seasonal and dependable like the cicada or mayfly. I have it marked in my calendar for next season!

A SPECTACULAR TROUT…

On a recent trip to a Wakitipu feeder stream I found what I was looking for. I wanted to encounter some browns moving up from the lake to spawn in a few months time. Along with a number of rainbows, I had 5 browns in the 5 to 7lb range eat or attempt to eat my fly. I only landed one but that fish alone was worth the trip. A very pale coloured trout, it was indeed unique, unlike any trout I’ve seen before. A unique fish like this is at least as satisfying to catch as a really big fish. It’s the brown trout’s infinite differences in shape and colour that make it the species I want to target more than any other. I hooked and lost another fish around 5lbs with what appeared to be a yellow back, again unlike anything I’ve seen before. I really wanted to see this fish out of the water. On hooking, I briefly saw a very deep, silvery flank. I’ve been back since in the unlikely hope of finding him but without success.. Wakatipu feeder streams are open until the end of may so I’ll be back!!

SQUAWKING, FLAPPING AND CRASHING! (AND A VERY BIG TROUT!)

Over the last couple of days Tom McAuliffe and myself went to a river we both enjoy. As luck would have it Robbie was there too so we all fished together on day one. Just before we met Robbie on the river he had landed an 8lb brown. Shortly after we saw another big trout and then things went quiet for the day. In fact we didn’t spot another fish! I had a couple of follows from a dark pool while blind fishing. Shortly after at the head of the same pool it felt as though I became connected to the reef I was fishing across. It was no reef!, it was a solid brown of about 5.5lbs. A real tank of a trout; I was happy to get it under the difficult circumstances. Two great fish for the day but the lack of trout about was a little concerning.

On day 2 it was just Tom and me. We decided to go hard into the wilderness and hope for the best. I had been in a few times before this season with poor results due to terribly low fish numbers but I’m a sucker for a good gorge! As before fish numbers were low. All season long I was hoping the fish were in hiding, under rocks in semi hibernation as these fish tend to do but now I’m confident the fish just aren’t there. Maybe its a cyclical thing and they’ll return but I’m worried to be honest. The number of shags living on the river is also a concern. These creatures feed on fish and only fish. More about that another time. About half way through the day we found the first fish (apart from one I spooked). It looked really big, maybe a double! Sitting apparently dormant against a rock at 90 degrees to the very slow current at the bottom of the pool. A weird position to say the least. Tom won the rock, scissors, paper to take the shot. I advised him on the approach I’d use since he was new to this type of fishing. A very long leader and a heavily weighted streamer, cast well above the fish, let it sink to the bottom and strip it passed its face. The leader had to be long so as not to line the fish in deep water, also to get the fly far enough up stream to give it enough time to sink to the bottom and still be upstream of the fish when it reaches the bottom. While we were setting up, the big trout decided to jump and then do a rapid loop of the pool for no apparent reason. This was a great sign! The fish was awake and not doggo. Tom made a number of accurate casts and from my vantage point I could see the fly passing just in front of the fish but it never flinched.. Then it became awake again, starting to swim up from the rock it was lying against just as Tom landed the fly in her vicinity. “Let it sink” I said, as I watched the fly drop into the fishes lair. “Strip, strip, strip” Tom did so.. I watched as the fish charged and inhaled the fly. Tom could see nothing from his position in the river but I could see everything form my vantage point. “Strike!!”, I said. She was on. After a dogged, heavy fight we got the fish into the net. We thought she might have been a double but the net doesn’t lie (I hope), just over 9lbs of magnificence. Tom was on top of the world and so was I.

Over the next while we saw a few fish. We had a couple of grabs to a streamer and missed one on a nymph but nothing of any size. There was one pool I wanted to get to before we called it a day. We had to push hard and waste no time to get there. We arrived quite late on the Autumn day. On arrival we saw nothing obvious. We carefully made our way up the pool trying to spot every inch of it as we went. In a backwater on the far side of the pool we saw 1 then 2 then possibly 3 or even 4 fish rising. My jaw dropped with anticipation and awe. At least one was a very big fish. Then Tom spotted a huge fish at the tail of the pool where we had just crossed. Now totally on the back foot, which fish do we target? behind or in front? The fish behind had to have been aware of us due to his position. He started to make his way up the pool. A shot had to be taken quickly. I had a dry and nymph on and took the shot. It seemed a better option than Toms streamer in the shallow, glassy water at the tail of the pool. The fish enquired, then enquired again firstly to the dry, then looked at the nymph. When I moved the nymph off the bottom he followed it a number of times before swimming away into the safety of the dark water. I was disappointed because this was a really (really) big, beautiful, catchable fish. However! We had possibly 4 rising fish to target so I looked forward with a confident smirk, Tom looked at me with the same smirk, we took a few steps forward, both considering the best plan of attack. Rise after rise, both of us eager to take them on. “That’s close enough” we both agreed.  With that 2 paradise ducks came squawking, flapping and crashing into the pool, sliding 25 foot right on top of all the rising fish before immediately lifting off again. Birds gone, fish gone, silence. Dumbfounded, I managed to ask Tom “What the fuck just happened?”,  “Fucked if I know” he replied, “para’s”. That was it, all over. I landed a 2.5lber in the next pool but it didn’t even take the edge off how I was feeling. Utterly heartbroken and time to head out. I hate Paradise Ducks!

That’s all folks! 3 days left of the brown trout season and I’ll be fishing all three of them I do believe!

Ronan..

Ps. Internet problems led to a one day delay in getting this out so just 2 days left of the season! Jeff and I fished today and landed 10 fish up to 8lbs! More on that in the next blog. Also, I wanted to write about filming and upcoming NZ fly-fishing TV show with Jeff Forsee filmed by Nick Reygaert but I’m out of steam now so next blog maybe. I also had a few great days and nights in Southland with Robbie Mcphee and Chris Jackson, stars of New Zealand Trophy Waters ( http://www.fishingvideo.co.nz  ). We fished, ate, drank and were merry! Very merry!! Also great to fish with and catch up with one of my first made friends in NZ, Bob Toffler. See you next season, Bob!

MAY IS STILL OPEN FOR BUSINESS! For any guiding bookings or enquiries, ronan@sexyloops.com

The Fly-Fishing Connection…

January 26th, 2016 No comments

You’d think after 5 years writing this blog that I’d be somewhat computer literate. Well, far from it. I just wasted 3 hours of my life trying to make photos smaller on Iza’s Mac (2mp or less to fit in wordpress blog). With Windows you just select the pics, click “make smaller” and its done. On the Mac you have to select the photos, export them (fuck knows where they go) then make them smaller after you’ve found them, then import them, then export them back to iphoto but they wont make it there, they’ll get lost on the way,  then do some other shit to them, then you loose them, then you try to do it all again a few times before giving up and without pulling out whats left of my hair. I did well not to make bits of this computer while the steam was leaving my ears and curses hurtling from my mouth.

Firstly, to all of you who enjoy my ramblings on NZ fly-fishing, sorry its taken me so long to put this together. Life got away on me a bit leaving me little time to write. Which is a good complaint I guess!

I had a great 2 day mission with Bob Wyatt and Robbie Mcphee a good while ago now. It was weather for waders, freezing cold mornings and lots of rain but the sun eventually made an appearance. We all caught fish on a range of tactics. We spent the night in a farm cabin, no better place to catch up. A glowing fire, good food and few beers with good friends is hard to beat, to be honest I think the fishing came second.

The house in Cromwell has been a hive of activity for the passed couple of months with friends coming and going, mostly flyfishers but not all. My old friend Sean stayed for a few days. The fishing was tough then but we managed a few good fish. Then Nico arrived, Nico’s first fish on fly was an artic char on Lough Inagh in the west of Ireland a few years ago. What are the odds? They are a rare wee fish indeed in Ireland. We had a couple of days on Dunstan and he managed a couple of good fish on fly. That was Christmas day, we kept one to eat raw as a christmas dinner starter, it was fantastic! Mark Adamson was next, we had a feckin tough day on a west coast river where we managed one decent trout. The surroundings were spectacular and the sun was shining which made a tough day a little better!

Since then we’ve had Fergal Cormican, another friend from Ireland come and stay for a few days as he learned how to take on NZ rivers and lakes, we fished Lake Dunstan around Ranfurly for a couple of days where we found a few good stretches of the Taieri and its backwaters.. A great training ground for both river and still water angling.

I recently had a day on the water with Dean Whaanga up the country a bit. We checked out a truly spectacular valley to see how a recent flood might have reshaped the river and surrounding creeks. We found a few fish but they were difficult. At that time fish seemed to be difficult everywhere, possibly due to falling barometric pressure, I’m not sure.. I don’t pay too much attention to that kind of thing because I’ll be going fishing regardless! We landed a couple of fish and had a great day on the water. I met Dean when I first came to NZ in 2002 at my good friend Bob Tofflers house, we all enjoyed a feed of mutton birds! I’m delighted to have fished with him finally. It was a pleasure to see a fella with 30 plus years of guiding under his belt has not lost any enthusiasm for fishing during his time off..

The most recent visitor was Con O Flynn, also a friend from Ireland. We had 2 big days on the river together, I took him into one of the toughest gorges I know of. I asked him was he fit! He said yes and he looked like he could handle it so off we went.. Theres a point in the gorge where you need to get out and drop back in farther up. We got to that point and climbed out, then climbed back in. No problem. I looked for my usual crossing point to continue up river and I could see it, I just couldn’t get to it. I could see another crossing a little farther down river which looked easy so I decided on that one rather than going up river to climb down to my usual crossing. This turned out to be a mistake, Con took a dip in the river as he crossed and then going up on the other side of the gorge proved quite difficult because of a crevice keeping us from my usual way, we had to keep going up! We got there in the end and then we could continue up river with only a couple of minor climb-outs to get around bluffs. We found a few fish but not as many as I was expecting, saw a couple of brutes. Con landed a solid brown and hooked a much larger fish which straightened the hook. It was really great to bring a fella like Con into a special place like that. Win, loose or draw its a great place to be alive as long as your the type of person who can appreciate it for what it is. We left it all on the river. See you next time, Con! We have some unfinished business with NZ trout.. Thanks for everything!

I’m expecting a visit from Ken Whelan any time now, he’ll be passing through with his Brother, Brendan on their way south. I expect we’ll fit in a mission at some stage, David Lambroughton will also join us hopefully.

Between friends coming and going, Fly-fishing and trying to set up my guiding career things have been very busy indeed.. Long may it last!

Tight Lines Eeryone.. A little tip for you all, 18 is the new 16!

Ronan..

ronan@sexyloops.com