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South Westerly.
Just the sound of it sends
shivers down my spine, if not up my leg as it were, when said leg is immersed
in the sea. A month of it over the summer holiday period. A time when the city
empties and the local flats should fire. When the Nth Shore beaches should be
packed with swimming humans. When yellow tailed predators should be on the
flats chasing the bait. The bait is there. The beaches are packed with sun
seekers. The city is empty. But alas, the water temperature has cooled as
summer has rolled out, the foul south westerly chilling the water and pushing
warmer currents offshore. This is the time for launching pre-dawn in a light
sweater, ditched as soon as the sun gets above the horizon. Rather, parkas have
been donned and have stayed on. It’ll all click into place sooner or later, but
time is against me. I’ve covered kms of road and ocean searching and searching,
and its been harder to roll a kingfish than I can ever remember. I’m not
talking those pee-whackers that sit against markers in channels, more so the
legal sized plus fish on the flats.
Having said that, it’s been pleasant to
revert to chasing trout. A week before going back to work, Jase and I accompanied
by her royal darkness the Black Piranha, headed back country. We’d day tripped
in here a while ago, but with 3 streams on offer the idea of venturing further
afield from a base camp quite appealed. In one of the stream’s upper reaches,
brownies are known to hold. Of the three, it held the greatest mystique so our
plan was to walk in on day 1 and fish down from the 3 stream confluence back to
camp. Day 2 we’d push up Mystique Creek and day II would see us fish our way
back to the car. I’d packed as light as I could but still the pack felt
whopping on my hips and shoulders. A dry run on the back lawn saw the tent go
well but my old air mattress was stuffed so a call into a couple of local shops
for a Thermarest and a new Jetboil stove was needed. I hadn’t lugged a pack in
over a year, what with my hip operation that saw me relatively immobile for 6
months that preceded my latest knee op… well, I wasn’t expecting to set any
speed records anyhow. It took a solid tramp to arrive at the camp site. It
hadn’t been inhabited for quite some time. With camp erected and a cup of
coffee under our belts we set off to fish…. And on the first crossing the dog
came in from upstream and bowled me over mid-stream. Choice. I reminded her
that Id carried all her food in and that she should be more grateful. The pools
down here are gorgy, lined by towering bluffs that seem to close in. The high
water mark reached well up the walls, indicating that in flood conditions this
it would be quite an inhospitable place to be. You’d be well screwed in other
words, and probably would be ground into little bits of human.
The fishing was good, we plucked fish from
each pool and made it to camp. Jase felt knackered and had a headache – it was
hot. I gave him some electrolytes and he headed to his tent for a nap while I
pushed up the small second stream. Here I found some delightful small pools but
a huge scramble between holding water. I should explain that the terrain is
comprised of boulders, smooth rounded rocks interspersed with jagged hard-edged
shin traps. Boulders of all sizes. My legs were beaten up and I don’t want to
gloss over the fact that I found it hard going in here. River crossings are
tricky, the terrain steep and underfoot the going hard. Despite the fact that
the water level was down a good foot and a half from our previous trip, it was
a physical challenge. The fish I found in those small pools rose beautifully to
a PMX. After a while the sun had dropped to such an extent that the gorge was
fully shaded and it was time to head back down to the camp. We started a fire
and Layla curled up after having devoured her dinner. We ate our dehydrated
meals by the fire, boiled the pot for coffee, talked smack and then I sat and
watched the fire burn down to safe embers. Layla in the meantime had made
herself right at home on top of my sleeping bag and Therma rest and was quite
put out when I pushed her off.
The morning came and we struggled out of
our tents, ate and got ready to push up Mystique Creek. Generally the water in
this stream is slightly cloudy. And what a pain in the a$$ b1tch of a mission
it became. First, fish were scarce. Second, the fish we caught were skinny and
third, a thriving population of large eels became apparent with every hooked
fish eliciting a chase from a manky dark snake. At one stage a fish I’d played
for several minutes made a run down past a huge boulder against which fallen
branches had piled and I jumped in without thinking to clear my line from the
snag. The first hint of the eel was a large tail waving cms from my face as I
reached down to my shoulder to free the line. I leapt from the stream and the
eel stalked me to the bank where I nudged him (probably ‘her’ to be honest)
with my wading staff. That was quite off putting. Further up, Jase hooked an
played a tiny rainbow which he released. The slithering black critter that came
splashing upstream in the shallows was breath-taking for its size and stature.
It was simple massive and was fixated on digging the small rainbow from under
the rock where it had taken shelter upon release. And, it simply gave not one
shit that my wading staff was prodding it. The wee rainbow shot away and the
slithering devil’s agent began to get quite aggro snapping at my staff.
We’d fished up for over half a day with no
sign of either brownie, nor picturesque water so decided to turn around and
head back downstream. After a few hours, a number of stumbles, one of which
caused a broken wading staff, a knee twist and saw me outstretched in a wee
feeder stream, and some bush lawyer attacks, we were near the confluence when
we heard voices. I whistled out on the dog whistle just to let any hunters know
that we were human and not deer and we made our way down to meet 3 guys who had
had plans of camping where we were set up. They were looking for deer although
one had a stout looking 2 piece spinning rod. We talked a while, cross
referenced each other’s plans so as not to put anyone in danger and then
parted. Coffee at camp tasted awesome. We spent the afternoon following my path
from yesterday up the smallest tributary and found the same fish that I’d seen
the previous day although now they were on high alert. We carried on upstream
but holding water was hard to find so after a couple of hours we gave up and
returned to camp. I built a fire while Jase fished the evening rise and again
Layla invaded my tent first to nab the comfy spot. The breeze had died down so
mosquitos were out in force so upon entering the tent I spent a few minutes on
search and destroy before satisfying myself that the tent was mozzie free and
inhabitable.
The final morning dawned fine so we ate,
broke down the camp, doused the fire, donned packs and began to fish our way up
to the get out point. Fish were quite hard to find, although Jase did hook a
nice little brownie, our first from the stream. With about a km to go, Layla
lit up and gave her “intruder!” bark as 2 guys came downstream. We stopped and
chatted, and quickly recognised them as mates of Pesty – Redman and Nugget.
They’d planned to camp where had had and fish the 3 streams, so we’d
inadvertently torpedoed their plans. After what looked like months of no use,
the camp site suddenly was quite a popular place to be! They decided to head
back upstream and fish above the get out point while we picked our way back.
Since their portage was quite close to the water, any fish in residence would
be spooked so we didn’t focus too much on fishing. We caught them up later and
they’d hooked a couple of fish. At the truck we changed, and hit the road
stopping for cold drinks in town.
2 days later with a great forecast I was on
the road again with boat in tow, headed for Tauranga Harbour. I’d reasoned that
although in holiday period the dawn high tide gave me a reasonable shot at
flats cruisers before the water skiers arrived. I was in position and stalking
early. The conditions seemed ok. It was cool and a slight (SW!) breeze came up
now and again but I felt pretty confident. I covered a lot of water. A LOT of
water. Rays, mostly eagle and some smaller models of longtails swept ahead of
the boat or shot out of the sand when the boat appeared over them. But not a
single large short tail ray, the type that kingis ride, did I see. I followed
the tide as it receded only briefly spotting a solitary king near a channel
marker and even that fish was disinterested in the fly. I ran the harbour and
pulled out at lowish tide. Skiers and jet skiers had arrived and any sane fish
would be elsewhere.
Back home I decided to run a recon mission.
With fly rod of course. Dawn high tides around here suit the kings and their
predatory nature. I ran out from Torpedo Bay (getting busier these days) and
headed straight to a marker that doesn’t get the attention of stick baiters and
jiggers. I hooked up briefly but the king ran around the pole and neatly rubbed
the hook out leaving me firmly attached. The flat was again ruffled. Again the
SW made its presence felt. I was happy to be wrapped in my parka. Even so I
wasn’t exactly warm. I scanned the flat for an hour but could detect no
movement. Moving on the wind began to
rise. I decided to call it, I’d been pretty single minded when thinking about
this mission. On the way in I detoured to visit another flat and saw another
angler on the spit that forms the flat. He was casting industriously both into
and with the wind and I determined that he was spinning. I held in the rip at
the end of the spit and then moved in to the beach area where the angler
introduced himself as Alan Bulmer, the man behind Active Angling NZ. We spent a good 30 minutes yarning and
observing the flat as bait sprayed actively rippled the surface. It was time
well spent as we compared notes on flies, leaders and fish behaviour. But I had
to go so motored away slowly having given Alan a flounder fly and promising to
link up on Facebook.
The next day was forecast as PERFECT. The
first perfect day in over a month. A couple of days earlier, Chris had reached
out. He’d kindly offered a day out on his boat, a beautiful Jones Brothers Cape
Fisherman 18. We agreed to meet at Westhaven and launched in perfect
conditions. The plan was to visit local flats then move further afield to scope
other areas that looked great on charts. Conditions were (finally!) perfect,
glassed out and any ripple visible. We scoped a regular flat, sitting becalmed
and enjoying the scene. A kayaker came over and visited. Always worth talking
with locals. He said that he hadn’t seen much going on but soon we saw a decent
but wide wake, definitely not a kingis. We found a decent ray cruising just
under the surface. Moving out we found that (being Saturday) our next
destination was occupied so put the hammer down and headed to scope the new
water we had in mind. We found extraordinary flats, here and there fringed by
mangroves. Mullet leapt here and there. We cruised the coastline and Chris
spotted a king early on but it had scrambled before I saw it. Again the water
seemed extraordinarily cool for the time of year. We agreed that further
exploration at a later date was required and set off for Waiheke. Chris showed
be around some beautiful bays and we cast here and there. Briefly a snapper hit
my Clouser but the hook failed to set on the strip. We’d been out half a day so
decided to call it after visiting one other well know channel marker. I’d tied
on a concept fly involving a double barrel popper head with a dragon tail which
to my mind offered a blend of moving water and tail motion. First cast and 2
rats charged out but didn’t eat. Surface flies can have that effect – raising
fish that don’t take, so I tied on a rattle piper and quickly hooked up. The
fish burned me around the marker’s chain.
As I sit here in the office, the weather
forecast calls for light northerlies. Hopefully the summer of searching will
become a summer of catching.
