Faithful readers will have noticed that it’s been a while since my last post. Well, we just bought a house, and things have been pretty busy so no fishing for me. This weekend was the first holiday weekend in many months, and I did manage to sneak away Sunday afternoon for a short, overnight trip.
I decided to head up to the Whakapapa River, which is a 3.5 hour drive from our place. I could have gone to much closer rivers, but I just had it in my mind that I wanted to get an early season fish up in the back country. I first fished this river last year with Zee (you know, that guy in most of my fishing stories). We had parked way downstream and fished the confluence of the Wanganui with his Czech friends Jindrich and Honza. I hated it. The river was slippery as hell to wade, and I kept nearly falling in. It didn’t help that everyone else was on fire landing loads of fish, and I only pulled the occasional slab. I swore I’d never fish it again. Some months later, he somehow managed to talk me into fishing upstream and, while stupid slippery still, I did land some nice fish. I thought, well maybe it’s worth another look. I fished the last weekend of the season on it last year and got some great fish. Lots of browns, with some rainbows mixed in and all were really nice fish, so it’s on my radar now.
I left Sunday afternoon just before 1 PM so I was pulling into Stone Jug Road at about 4:40PM. As I made my way down the dead end gravel road, an SUV filled with fisherman and fly rods passed me as they were leaving. Groan. Hopefully they left some fish for me. It is a holiday weekend so I expected some pressure. As I arrived at the car park there were two more cars. My heart sank. I thought about going to another access, or even just heading home, but I had just driven for hours to be here, so screw it. I rigged up and headed down to the river. Boy was I glad I did.
At the first hole, I was immediately into fish. A mix of jacks and hens, but all in really good condition. Since I was solo, the pictures are pretty crap. I really need to find a fishing partner to take photos for me.
I managed 4 fish from just this first run. The were fat as footballs, very heavy and took no time in going airborne when hooked. Time was ticking though, and I had less than 2 hours left. I quickly headed up and fished the next two pools. They also did not disappoint. I managed 7 fish in all with 3 dropped. Most were in the 1.5 to 2kg range, with two jacks probably pushing 2.5kg.
Not a bad effort for a few hours fishing. I jumped in the car and drove down to the next access point, which has a car park right on the river. It was getting to twilight but there were still some families fishing there. I sat on the river bank and watched them cast to rising fish. An enjoyable end to a day’s fishing. I crashed in the back of the car, so I’d be the first person on the river in the morning, and I didn’t need an alarm clock. The first crack of light at dawn and I was awake.
After rigging up, very quickly and missing a few guides on my rod, I had a quick fish through the pool at the car park. It’s probably the most flogged pool on the river, and while I did spot a large fish feeding, I wasn’t able to entice him. All I managed to hook were two small hens that were as fat as they were long.
There’s a trail that leads along the river and, since I had never fished above this point, I took a short walk up. It’s all riffley pocket water and while I’m sure there are fish there, I was on a schedule and needed to find some fish fast. So….back up to Stone Jug Road. I was the first one (well first human) on the river.
I started at the first pool I had fished the night before and drew a total blank. At this point I’m panicking, thinking the river hasn’t reset overnight, so I skipped all the pools I had fished the night before and started at the next one up. Things started off with a fingerling, disappointing but then turned much brighter with 3 very nice rainbows. All very fat and healthy.
The fish fought surprisingly well and each went airborne, which I don’t normally expect from big fish. The last fish I hooked in this run was a sizable hen that decided to zig, zag, flop, splash and otherwise completely put the rest of the fish off by making a massive racket right through the entire run. In the end I lost her, the only lost fish of the day.
It was getting to be my cut off time, and so I headed back down stream. There is a set of small, condensed runs right before you get out of the river to head up the trail to the car park and I saved it for last. The first run yielded another fingerling and a smallish hen. The second, and final run of the day, was epic. I landed another fingerling before moving up the run and hooking into a very feisty jack that was the fish of the trip. He took ages to get in, as did a number of the fish before him. They were just in such good form and so fit.
I thought, well there might be another one in that run. I did get him downstream to fight pretty quickly. I waded back out and stripped some line out, making a short false cast to get some line in the water. As I went to pick the line up, fish on! This was just unreal. Another really nice jack, but smaller. This was fish number 11 for the day.
I’d love to say fish number 12 came out right after that, and believe me I tried, but it was almost 11 AM and time for me to pack it in.
So, if anyone wants to come along and photograph, I mean fish with me, just let me know.
Another post will follow shortly as my inbox is bursting with photos from the South Island. Now that Zee is guiding, I think it has made him even more brown trout crazy. He can’t seem to get enough of site fishing for big browns. I’ve tried to turn him to the dark side of North Island rainbow fishing but the bug hasn’t bit him yet.
AK CUSTOMS 
Im in! Always looking for photo/fishing buddy’s 🙂
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I haven’t posted in a long time. Just too busy with work. I have had tons of adventures across the Pacific though. If you are ever in the area let me know.
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