'Fishing in Middle Earth' - Ron Miller's Article
HELIFISHING IN MIDDLE EARTH
"I am haunted by waters" - Norman McClean.The river was opaque with glacial silt, but we landed anyway at the delta of the river north of the lake. We were supposed to have fished the spring creek on the east side of the river, but the river had flooded and clouded it too. We landed to the west and now we had fished most of the day, our last day in Aotearoa, and had seen but one fish. A very small stream that began from a 50 foot waterfall off the mountain above us, held a large and ever-so-wary cruising brown trout. He refused my friend Lon’s first two flies after inspecting them closely in the still clear waters of this little tributary. How such a large trout could just disappear in a virtual bathtub amazed me, but he did. We spent most of the day fishing on the fingerlike projections in the delta, but to no avail.
Now in the late afternoon we tramped through a tussock swamp back around the delta to work upstream along the west edge of this famous river. It would be just a couple hours before the Hughes 500 helicopter picked us up. I was hot and sweaty with foggy glasses by the time Scottie, our Kiwi guide, got us around the swamp and back to the river. I had caught a good trout ever day of the trip so far, and my desire for one more burned too strong. Trout gods do not look kindly on such lustful anglers.
"No man is born an Artist or an Angler" - Izaak Walton.
When I turned 12 in the fall of 1958, my 13 year city cousin had grown so much over the previous summer, that I, the country cousin, inherited his new and now outgrown sport coat. I had never had a sport coat before, and with a new sport coat my folks bought me new pants and new shoes at the Dad and Lad store. The shoes were black, and had to be polished every Sunday before church. Methodists never have unpolished shoes, at least not in Iowa in 1958. Every Sunday my Dad and I would polish our shoes with Kiwi shoe polish. On the can was a picture of a Kiwi and so I learned from shoe polish exactly what a Kiwi is, and with that knowledge, a desire to go to Kiwi country.
There are those who believe a Kiwi to be a green fruit, rich in Vitamin C. This Kiwi is really the Chinese Gooseberry, (Yang Tao) imported to New Zealand in 1906. Others know that a Kiwi is what native New Zealanders calls themselves.
Real Kiwis (Brown, Little, and Spotted) are brown, nocturnal, flightless, bug and worm eating birds the size of a pheasant. They are native to, but now incredibly rare on, the two main islands of New Zealand. Because of devastation by introduced predators (weasels, mongoose, and feral cats), the Kiwis numbers have steadily declined over the last 50 years. Kiwis are an atavistic and rather helpless bird compared to the native birds of North America like the wild turkey. I never saw one in the wild.
"Some fishermen see no fish and believe the river is empty" - Van Dyke
Kiwi guides like Scottie are renowned for their sighting of fish. In New Zealand fish are spotted first and then cast to, as compared to say Montana where fly fishermen fish to “structure”. Fishing to sighted fish is harder, because when you know that the fish you are casting to are very large, over 5 pounds, nerves will do you in. Think using four pound test line for three pound walleyes and then realizing a 40 pound muskie is about to take the bait.
Remembering that in shallow water a trout’s observation of the world above is about 35 feet out from him, you usually just need a 40 to 45 foot presentation cast. Wind can be troublesome so a six weight rod is helpful. Six pound test tippet (~4X)can be used, with a size 12 fly. A parachute Adams from the sixth class of Fly Tying 101 works very well here. It is all pretty easy until you see the size of these Kiwi Trout. Then the nerves set in.
"Wherever the trout are, it's beautiful" - Thomas Masaryck.
Scottie showed us his Kiwi eyes as he picked up rainbow after rainbow on an earlier day, when we fished with him on the river that travels through Middle Earth. Here we saw the places where trees walk and talk, and where hobbits and elves live.
To get there you go by helicopter. You could hike there but it takes several days. By helicopter it is a much shorter and perhaps a more scenic route. Waterfalls that would be major tourist attractions in the US flash by on the ride to this ancient forest with its pristine river. There are only two places to land on this beat of the river, where you start and where you end, and you best be at the takeout when the helicopter comes at 5 o’clock.
Part of the allure of the Cedar Lodge on the Makarora River of the South Island of New Zealand is traveling to the most beautiful rivers of the area. With a 20 to 30 minute helicopter ride over rain forests and through the mountain saddles, one can fish otherwise inaccessible rivers. It is undoubtedly the most luxurious fly fishing I have ever done, and a long way from my childhood of catching bullheads on Beaver Creek in Iowa.
"There was never an angler who lived but that there was a fish capable of taking the conceit of out him" - Zane Grey.
Sighting trout is best done when the sun is near its zenith. When we landed by the river of Middle Earth at 10 o’clock, Scottie had immediately spotted a trout in the first good run. He was not hard to see as he was an alligator of a trout. Coffee nerves, a monster trout, and a no-excuse glorious day is a direct path to some new misadventure in fly fishing. I have made all the old mistakes. From poorly tied knots to sloppy casts and everything in between, I have had all the mistakes and misadventures I want. And before the day was over I would lose a giant rainbow to a rock frayed tippet. I had done that one before too.
Kiwi trout, who have no aerial predators, like eagles and osprey, are still big trout in skinny water and easily spooked. I tied on a #12 parachute Adams, that I had tied for practice for teaching a Fly Tying 101 class. It is wise not to cast over such trout, so I took two false casts perpendicular to the stream, and then put an upstream slack line So cast with the fly just on a patch of still water just ahead and to the left of this silvery shadow. There must have been a little Gandalf magic in my fishing wand as this rather tricky cast actually landed where it was supposed to. The #12 parachute Adams bobbed seductively in the film.
This big old trophy lived in a cloistered shelter of still water in a tumbling mountain river and he did not fear the well presented fly. Big trout are old trout and they take the fly slowly. Cutthroat trout in the still backwaters of the Rockies do this too. The larger brown trout of the Straight River are annoyingly slow in the take of a trapped fly. This trout of Middle Earth knew a fly in his little pool was not going anywhere anytime too soon. He rose to the fly, opened his maw, closed it and turned back upstream. He was a most charitable trout to me.
"Some fishermen do battle with their prey, but the flyfisher is more to having communion with the trout" - Rellim Nor.
The connection of the rod and fly line to the fragile leader and tippet to the artifice called a fly to the trout produces the fondest of memories. A photograph, even a movie, can only capture the visual of it, never the feel of it. An eternal and kinesthetic memory is made when the fish first pulls. If the tippet breaks, the heart sinks and the memory is bittersweet. But if the tippet holds when the wild trout pulls, it is the sweetest memory of communion with a wild thing. The joy of that first time as a little boy when you caught your first fish is recaptured, even though you are certainly no longer a little boy.
The rainbow seemed not to know he was hooked until I pulled so hard I thought I would break the tippet. But the knots held, the hook stayed true, and this old man of the river graced a digital camera in a minute or so. Sometimes your karma goes well. Perhaps it was all those days when I got skunked, that was the Ying and now was the Yang.
"If a man is truly blessed, he returns home from fishing, to be greeted by the greatest catch of his life" - A wise fisherman.
I am in love with another woman, and Aotearoa is her name. Aotearoa is the Native New Zealand Maori ( pronounced mau-ree) word for New Zealand. Maoris have lived in New Zealand, at least since the mid 16th century. New Zealand is a land that evolution forgot. Before the Maoris arrived NZ was inhabited just by birds (many were flightless like the Kiwi and the extinct Moa), and no mammals but two species of bats. J.R.R. Tolkien fans think now of New Zealand as a country inhabited by hobbits, dwarves, and elves. We certainly saw places where they could be.
For two weeks before fishing with my friend, Lon Christianson, I traveled with my wife, Sue. Fortunately my greatest catch loves Aotearoa as much as I do. We traveled on the North and South Islands six years ago, but this time we traveled only on the southern part of the South Island. New Zealanders or Kiwis are friendly, helpful, and generally considerate of one another and travelers. We found only one crabby Kiwi in 4 weeks of travel in New Zealand. Kiwi hospitality is real, not theoretical.
Traveling to New Zealand is a 12 Π hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland. From Auckland one can fly to all other major NZ cities in 3 hours or less. Overnight Air New Zealand coach flights are really pretty comfortable. Traveling by rental car in NZ is fairly easy if you don’t mind left side driving. This takes a little getting used to, but if one is careful and goes slowly, it is really very safe.
Bed and Breakfasts, Homestays, and Farmstays are numerous in NZ, relatively inexpensive, and a great way to see the country. We stayed at the George Hotel in Christchurch, but stayed in Bed and Breakfasts like the Bella Retreat in Invercargill the rest of our time. We booked all our stays through the Best of New Zealand Fly Fishing, who also booked the fishing package at the Cedar Lodge. Six years ago we traveled from B&B to B&B without a plan, but had no problems, and enjoyed all of them. Some B&B’s are clearly better than others, but all of ours were superb.
Nowhere in New Zealand is much more than a day’s drive from the ocean. Sheep are seen everywhere, except in the most rugged mountains. For most of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s New Zealand was all about sheep and wool. By the 1960’s and 1970’s tourism to see the great scenery and outdoor adventuring became the best reasons to see NZ. New Zealand is the birthplace of bungee jumping, a curiously unique and dangerous sport. There are trout right below where the tourists jump. It is much safer to fish there.
We did see Brown Kiwis in captivity in specially lighted Kiwi houses where they think it is night so they come out to feed. They look just like the Kiwis on the Kiwi Shoe Polish can. Other flightless birds including some parrots live in NZ, but to me the most interesting flightless birds were the penguins. Penguin watching is like hawk watching at Duluth, MN, but one is much closer ( 30 to 40 feet) to the penguins. We saw Yellow-eyed Penguins, but Sue and I both loved the Little Blue Penguins the most. They are the smallest penguins in the world, only 15-16 inches tall, and more like stuffed toys than wildlife. If it was not for the conservationism of many Kiwi folks, and wildlife preservation ethic of the country of New Zealand many of these penguin species might already be extinct.
"Wine is sunlight held together by water" – Galileo Galilei.
New Zealand is known more for its All Blacks Rugby team (they are perennial world champions), than for its food and wine. In NZ entrees are just that, the entry – or what we call the appetizer. What we would call entrée, Kiwis call the "main". Whether in a Christchurch or Invercargill restaurant, a B&B, or a roadside café we had great "mains". Some foods are very Kiwi, like Blue Cod, Kaikoura Crayfish, and Pavlova. Blue Cod is a tender whitefish, Kaikoura Crayfish is pretty much lobster, and Pavlova is a tasty meringue dessert. For a cool afternoon treat nothing beats Hokey Pokey ice cream, an original NZ flavor.
Viniculture is the new darling of NZ agriculture, with many new vineyards from the last 10 years along side Kiwi orchards, Gala and Braeburn apple orchards, as well sheep and dairy farms. New Zealand is one of the world’s newest producers of wines; with the explosion of wineries on both islands (especially the South Island) rivaling what happened in California in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Sauvignon Blanc wines of the Marlborough region are of the world’s finest.
"Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience" – Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The pace of fishing that last day was slow, but Lon and I had seen it before, nothing all day then in the last hour, a bonanza. Scottie soon found a nice rainbow in a side channel. Lon caught this feisty rainbow without too much trouble. As we had learned each day, more than a modicum of patience was necessary in setting the hook, and Lon showed great patience in setting the hook as the rainbow took the fly on a downstream sip. The trout was released and we headed upstream. I still had not caught a trout this day. Scottie thought he heard the helicopter, and put on the orange "fly-to- me" vest, but only the wind roared and we looked at what was likely the last fishable run of the day.
I recognized this place immediately, as I had been here with my friend, Bruce (Pitts) and Martin, our guide, six years before. I remembered the slow rise of the large brown trout. I remembered the patience Bruce had shown to catch that nice brown. I did not remember this side channel or the obvious and very large brown trout in it today.
"In fishing, as in love, timing is everything." - Rellim Nor.
The helicopter was nowhere to be heard, so there was time to get a fish, and if caught, it would be the only one this day for me. I wanted this one last large New Zealand Brown badly. When you want so much and try too hard, mistakes come easy. The cast to this fish was rather easy compared to the bigger rainbow I caught on the river in Middle Earth. The timing of when you set the hook on big fish is everything, too soon and you pull it out of the large mouth, too late and trout has spit the hook. This trout was not like the one Lon caught an hour before, and or like the one Bruce caught six years before. This big guy was quicker than I expected, when he gobbled the fly, he showed no hesitation, sped to the fly, and was hooked. The hook set is quick when the fish is quick, and slow when the take is slow. It is best to adopt the pace of nature. In the "de-liar" net (one with a built-in scale) he was six pounds even.
Timing is the only thing sometimes. What if my cousin had not outgrown that sport coat? What if we had used Meltonian Shoe Polish instead of Kiwi polish? Timing even in shoe polishing is everything…
If you choose New Zealand for travel with or without fishing, go to www.bestofnzflyfishing.com for good advice on where to go, where to stay, and where to fish.
RHM
Biography:
Ronald H. Miller, M.D. loved bullhead fishing as a kid in Iowa, but did not fish while attending college or medical school or pediatric residency, or military service. Instead when he moved to Fargo, ND to begin practicing medicine he discovered nearby spring creeks in Minnesota. He was hooked and taught himself the fine are of fly fishing and fly tying from books in the late 1970's. Once he mastered the sport, he has taught Fly Fishing 101 and Fly Tying 101 for Fargo Parks & Recreation for the past decade.
We have helped plan and book two trips to New Zealand for Dr. Ron and look forward to helping him return again in 2006. We are pleased to share a newspaper article he wrote for the Fargo Newspaper, Forum, after his last trip in February 2004.
