Catching Fish
Shortly before we left for our trip, I became interested in fly fishing, and Jesslyn bought me a nice rod and reel for my birthday. I got a quick backyard lesson from Steve, Jesslyn’s dad, but only got to use the rod a couple times. We would have liked to go fishing with him to learn more, but we didn't have the opportunity. On one of those occasions when I was fishing on my own, I found myself standing on the shore of the pond next to another guy who was casting his fly way out onto the lake into a group of trout feeding on the surface. He was hauling them in with great consistency. All of my casts fell short. Some casts ended up wrapped around my head. I felt like an idiot.
So here we are in Taupo, NZ, one of the world’s premier fly fishing destinations. I knew I would need some instruction before expecting to catch a fish. We found a guide, Andrew Christmas, through some internet research and booked a half day. One of the first things Andrew asked was if we wanted a good chance of catching small fish or a not-so-good chance of catching big fish. I opted for the big guys, thinking that I can catch small ones back home.
We drove about 30 minutes outside of town, put our waders and boots on, and hiked through the trees to a crystal clear stream. The stream is about 25 yards wide in most places, and you can wade in much of it. Some of the bottom is sandy, which combined with the clarity, and shallow depth make it possible to spot the fish. A common way to fish here is to walk slowly along the stream, trying to spot the fish, then casting to them. Crap. That puts a lot of pressure on a guy who can’t cast.
After getting down to the stream, we got two minutes of instruction on how to use the flies. We were using nymphs which are a type of wet fly that sinks. Jesslyn's rod had a strike indicator, and mine had a bright orange, imitation trout egg on the line which is (supposedly) visible underwater and acts as a strike indicator as well. We didn’t see any fish initially, so we were to cast upstream into a pool that we couldn’t see into well, and let the current take the nymphs down stream. My first cast was in the tall grass on shore. Luckily, the stream was small, so distance was not an issue. However, accuracy was critical. Jesslyn and I fumbled around a bit before we moved on to another spot.
At the new location, Andrew got us set up in our spots and showed us where to cast. I thought I got the hang of it OK, when he took the rod from me and started casting himself. In about one minute he hooked a fish, and handed me the rod. As I am finding out, there is so much to fly fishing that is different from other types of fishing. You can’t fight the fish because they will break the delicate leader. You have to keep the rod up and bent like a spring to keep tension so the fish can’t work the hook free. If the fish swims away, let line out, if he swims toward you, pull it in, fast. On top of all that, you have to keep them away from obstacles in the water like overhanging trees and branches. Keep in mind, you are doing all this while standing on slippery, uneven rocks in moving water up to your knees or even waist.
Luckily, this fish decided to head away from me. He took quite a bit of line with him as he went around a bend, and I was walking as fast as I could toward him so that I could keep the line away from trouble on shore. Andrew grabbed the net and ran toward the fish. He netted him while it was still 40 yards away from me. The fish was absolutely incredible. This might sound funny, but it was beautiful. I have never caught a freshwater fish nearly that big. I know what you are thinking, and I agree with you: I didn’t really catch that fish. I didn’t cast or set the hook. I didn’t even pull it in. But we did get some great photos with an amazing and enormous brown trout. OK, now that we have that under our belts, maybe I can do some more of the work.
Nope. Deja vu all over again. Almost the exact same thing happened again. This one might have been a little bigger even, and we released him without harm. It turns out the Andrew spotted both of those fish in areas where I was fishing. I never saw them in the water. Throughout the day, we did spot several large browns. Sometimes they wouldn’t strike before being spooked away from the splashing of the fly, or sometimes they were in places impossible to get a fly to. As it was getting near the end of our time with Andrew, we spotted a couple fishing feeding on the surface. A fish would jump every minute or so. Wow, sure thing, right? Nope.
Andrew quickly put a dry fly (floats on top of the water) on the line and began casting. He cast a bunch of times right on top of where the fish were jumping, but no strikes. He ran back to the car to get a different fly, and I was casting in the mean time. My casts weren’t quite hitting the spot, and I gave the rod to Jesslyn, who was casting pretty well after a couple misfires. When Andrew came back he resumed casting, but with no luck. He cut the fly down so it was smaller in order to look more like the lace moths the fish were eating. He cast some more. No strikes. He explained that one of the most frustrating things is to see fish feeding and not being able to get a strike. Jesslyn and I looked at each other and shrugged. We were getting bored watching him cast. He finally gave up and handed the rod back to Jesslyn. We had about five minutes left as Andrew started to get his gear together and look around for any other browns we might cast to quickly before we had to go. He glanced over at Jesslyn and said, “nice cast”, then yelled, “STRIKE!!!”. Jesslyn jerked the rod up like pro, setting the hook, and proceeded to work it in to her feet; a beautiful rainbow trout she caught all by herself. Of course, we didn’t choose the fly, or the time and place, but that one counts. I am jealous.
That night we cooked the whole big brown in aluminum foil over the campfire. I had to keep moving it around because the fish was bigger than the fire. Together we ate a lot of fish, but only managed to consume half. Our neighbors at the campground were delighted to help us with the rest. It was really good. Many of you may be surprised to hear that Jesslyn ate trout and enjoyed it, and she was surprised as well.
Learning to Cast
After Taupo, we stayed a little further north near Lake Rotorua, another area world famous for fly fishing. When we checked in to the campground, we learned of a local guide who specializes in teaching people about fly fishing and how to properly cast. I talked to Harvey, aka, “The Trout Man" on the phone and he made it clear that there are no fish around at the moment and we shouldn’t expect to catch anything. We were about three weeks too late for the summer season, and about three weeks too early for the winter season. That’s fine, I wanted to learn and didn’t need fish getting in the way of that. We signed up for a half day of tuition.
We started our class on the grass with no rods, just doing the arm movements. It felt a little silly. Once we mastered the movement without a rod, we got a handle attached to about a foot of rod. After mastering that, we finally got a rod with line (no hooks yet though). Standing on the grass we were doing the forearm cast pretty well. Then we repeated the whole process, but this time learned the overhead cast which gets your shoulder into the action for more power and longer reach. Then we learned the figure eight retrieve, then the strip retrieve, and then Harvey played the role of a trout as we practiced setting a hook and pulling in a fish. After about an hour and a half we went down to the lake.
Harvey is retired and does this work mostly for fun. You know he doesn’t do it for the money since he charged only a quarter of what Andrew did. He told us a few years back he did a little research and realized that there was a market for teaching beginners. No one else was doing it. All of the guides charged a lot of money which put pressure on them to catch fish. So, if their clients can’t cast well, the guides end up casting. Don’t we know it.
Down at the lake with Harvey, the wind gave us a little trouble, but after moving to the other side of the mouth of the stream to account for the wind direction, Jesslyn and I were casting like pros (short for “proficiently”, not “professional”). Harvey was impressed by how quickly we picked it up, and taught us the roll cast on the water. Just as he warned, there were no fish to be caught that day, but we didn’t care. We got exactly what we needed.
The beautiful brown trout.
This is the second one I "caught". We released this one.
Jesslyn hauling in her rainbow.
This is a part of the previous photo zoomed in so you can see Jesslyn's jaw dropped wide open.
She caught this one.
A better look at her rainbow trout.
- Jake