Day II - watching waves

A bit of a sleep-in was justified but ultimately hardly helped our cause... I was awake at 4am but its not particularly civil to wake other people up at super early times so it was after 7 before I re-awoke. Si and Greig were up and about and Nik followed soon after. A bit of muesli and we set about making lunches. Round about then Nik and Si start talking ping-pong. Seems that they have unearthed in each other a love of hitting the little white ball, so soon we're finishing off the table Nik's been building and then passing up the bits to Nik's deck. Then they're off! It's Kung-Fu-Chu Vs the Pale Paddle Pirate!



Meanwhile I check the forecasts and they seem to strangely (ehem) diverge from reality. "10 kt SE easing" doesn't quite match with the tree rattling breeze. We get out there about 11.30 and poking the nose around the corner we know that Mayor and Penguin are out so try for Motiti to see if we can find something over the reefs. But the breeze freshens and we're soon bashing into chop that's just short of white-capping. I'm a bit worried for Simon but his Paihia Bombs seem to be working, plus he's got crystallised ginger onboard. We pull the pin and decide to just drift and deploy burley to see if we can get a shark up. I rig one of Simon's flies with a wire leader and he rigs the Super 14 on his big rod. Soon a good mako turns up. Fresh chomp marks around his head indicate some sort of run in with a bigger bitie. He stays with us for about 30 minutes, all the time ignorning the fly that's dangling so yummily in his face. Grieg fed the fly to it, stripped it, dropped it on his nose. Again vis was crap with breaking waves so several times we lost sight of him for good periods of time. Eventually the burley ran out so we kicked off for home.

I took my leave early so I could get home to have tea with the family. A slight detour to drop off some wading boots that Nik had sold to Simon Runting (we arranged a fishing trip) and I was home. Nice thing about fly fishing is that there reaely is a big mess to tidy, no sticky stinky bait etc so everything was packed away before 6.

Great couple of days, pity about the weather!

Heaving flies & heaving seas

Got up early on Friday, not much new about that. Drove to Paeroa and stopped in to see the folks, have a bite and then down town (hahahahaaa this is Paeroa) to look at the boat the old man is interested in. 5m cuddy type boat, nicely constructed, no frills. Seems to me to be a bit heavy and unwieldy for swamp work but he seems to want it. Definitely a better ocean going boat than the Rusty Rocket but with only a 70 horse on its bum will be moderately powered, hardly exciting. Then on the road again, through to Waihi stopping in to check a few pools on the Ohinemuri. Saw a small 'bow on the feed and a brownie tucked away down deep in a big pool. Moving on to Tauranga, been a while between visits so its always nice to arrive in one of my favourite places. Nik arrived soon after I got there, so we decided to go down to Sulpher Park Marina and see if we could see the mullet swimming around - oh yeah! Quickly hatched a plan to kid myself even further that I could take one on fly, I've put a whole bunch of time and effort into this passtime, never with great results (I once caught one on a silicon smelt, but wasn't fishing for them so can only count as accidental by-catch). Backing up a bit, we spent some time walking around looking at boats of various shapes and sizes, and the occasional mullet put in an appearance. At the northern end we began to find them in shoals so biffed in couple of handfuls of crushed pipi shells which didn't unduly disturb them; nor excite them greatly. They swam in circles like tarpon, or aligned like fighter jets swooping the bottom of the marina, we could see the disturbed mud billowing up. Then swimming to the surface they would expel mud from their gills, jettisoning the waste they had picked up. In places we watched one or two with their faces jammed on the bottom, tails up in the water column. This behaviour reminds me a lot of the mullet in Milford Marina, same action, same impossible to catch behaviours. Same 'go on have a shot' attitude.

So have a shot I did, first with a bread fly that I tied exactly for this situation. Not having any bread for burley was probably not the best strategy, but heck. I got in a dozen shots of good or ok quality, but nope. Couldn't get any interest. Switching to a BMS (Bullen Merrey Special [sp]) one of Muz Wilsons weed-type-dragon-fly-larvae-type whatever the fish mistakes it for flies got equal response.



Then out of the 'depths' of the marina came a short tailed sting ray of impressive size, On a 6 weight? Of course you have to try these things.



Ok so I'm actually a tad relieved that it didn't scoop up the fly which bounced over its snout because quite frankly exploding fly rods and destroyed reels and frayed fly lines aren't very special experiences.

After a bite at a cafe we headed back home to set up the boat, some rods, lines etc. Simon and his mate Greig arrive in a flurry of hand shakes, man-hugs and tackle. All of a sudden boxes of flies are produced, along with reels, rods and the realisation that we're going to have to leave some stuff at home. So we settle on Si's 11 Xi2, 9 Scott STS, 9 Zed and my Xi2 8 and CTS 12. Eventually we hook up the boat to the prado and head off. Nik complains about how busy the ramp is - we had 3 lanes/ramps to choose from! Okahu Bay in a holiday means a 45 minute wait at busy times so I could see no reason to complain!!! Soon we're heading out on mild seas with a slight SE wind so boom our way across to Mayor and Tuhua Reef. No one's there. No sooner had we deployed the anchor than Nik's heaving a popper which is monstered by large kahawai and some kings in the 10 - 20 kg class. With constant wind, sighting fish is difficult but we begin to hook stuff. Chu's on the board first.



Grieg's challenged by all the normal stuff - strip striking, kingi jitters and casting the 12 but gets on top of it quickly and is soon throwing a nice long line. He misses a few takes and I develop dropsies in a big way, hooking up but losing fish through a bunch of stuff, even giving them lots of slack so the hook falls out. Then suddenly its all dead. Nothing in the burley. We've not managed a trev (although I had thought I'd struck one before it spat the fly), although Si has got a snap aboard. So we up anchor and head across to Penguin in sloppy but not totally unpleasant seas. Only one other boat out there but yes! A huge foaming krilling school of trevors is up on the top. We've got about an hour of good light left so waste no time in positioning Si and Grieg. Grieg's in first with a chunky fish, the belly on this thing is rotund.



Simon's krill fly is doing the damage and he's soon in to a fish. I'm dragging a crease fly through the densely packed fish and the ones I'm hooking are most likely fouled so I give it away in favour of the krill fly and boat a few. Grieg's taking his share and so's Si, and the suddenly its getting hard to see the fish and they're down as the sounder reveals.

We're on our way back in semi darkness and the full moon is shining brightly in our boat wake. A couple of beers, a venison and rice dinner and its 11.30 before we hit the hay.

Good times.

'StatChu Bro?

Phone rings and is answered in deepest darkest Dunedin.

"Knock knock"

"Who's there"

"Statue"

"Statue who?"

"'StatChu bro?! Haaarr hahahahaaaa"

Yes, a call to Simon Chu may go something like that. (A demonstration of my rapier-like wit).

He's a fly fishing freak, and a friend and aficionado of some fine anglers that I know. Best of all he's a good dude and not a whacker like some fly fishing freaks can turn into when they reach the giddy heights of international recognition. Even as a Sage endorsed angler he doesn't push Sage down everyone's throats, more he manages to put in the good word without pimping the stuff - a pretty fair achievement in comparison to some of the overseas guys who simply reek of product sponsorship and can't be relied on for objectivity if it gets in the way of endorsement.

Somehow we've not managed to get our shit together and fish together, I mean we've had lunch, I've bought gear off him, he's sent me flies, hooks, offered advice, all in all he just spreads the word and the love. And more than once he's chucked a fly in my path, with invitations to visit the deep south. Now, sweet mother of weather gods allowing, that could change this weekend, as we will both be in the same place at once, and so will Nik. I'm looking forward to this!

Talking of weather gods, its looking nasty. 2.5m swell and 20 - 25 kt easterly - super. Coromandel beckons, or simply snapper fishing in the harbour on change of light - at least we have options. perhaps even an evening rise fish on one of the waters close by?

Around the pins with the Andrews

TT, Andy H and I hit the harbour last night in pursuit of kingis on fly and some snappers for tea. We launched at Okahu Bay and headed straight to Rough Rock. Andy and i rigged fly rods and first cast had fish chasing. I lost one almost immediately as it took me around the chain on the buoy and the fish seemed to have gone down. Across to 9 Buoy and again rats were present, TT lost what looked like a hog to a combination of a tangle in the running line and the chain on the buoy - this one had the big throb throb throb of a decent sized tail beating as the fish rolled on its side to beat the pressure of the rod. Across to TT's spot and we put a few casts in, kingis were there but no bites. Then a couple of hours of snapper drifting for a very few fish, nice ones though. The Nuclear Chicken did it again for me. TT then called it as kingi time, so back out with the fly rods. We all had a bit of fun, Andy H popping his kingi cherry with a couple of fish, I got several to the boat but without a landing net TT streadily broke them off using up my supply of Mega Mushies. I think we hooked about 10, landed 7 and had a ball. Back to the vice I think, and next time I'll probably just use the 8 weight.

Swamp mission

All in all a very good not too heavy trip. Andrew and Paul dug the sump as requested by DOC while Tom and I set up the sprayer. Unfortunately the firing end of the spray gun came adrift, losing the end washer thingy in the process. Tom fashioned a new one out of a soft drink cap. We sprayed the Willow pond drain and dragged back the buttercup and gave it a decent spray at Bollocks and around the islands. All in all not the most difficult of trips!

More Farkin Qantas

Ok ok I should just move on, I mean Qantas in NZ has, by replacing the 'flagship' brand with JetStar, their low cost equivalent. Low cost equivalent indeed, I reckon its just a foil for continued chaos. I flew JetStar 6 times last year and once it flew on time. Woohoo! Luckily we have a lowest cost travel policy which gives me Pacific Blue and (once in a blue moon) Air NZ as options.

So I was relatively amused and not at all suprised to read this.

Kayaking for snaps

The experts say that water temp exceeded 18 deg over the past 10 days, accounting for the snapper 'switching off' the bite as they got into their spawning activities. Add in the huge boat pressure in and around the Ak channels AND the full moon and you've got a challenging set of circumstances. 5.30 yesterday saw me at Narrowneck with a contingent of other yak fishos and small boat owners. Got set up and began paddling. Tide was dead low when I set off and by the trime I made the shipping channel was booming in. Didn't check the tide charts but with big moon I'm picking a good sized tide as well. The wind stayed away - pattern has been calm mornings with breeze speringing up late morning and stiffening in the afternoons. I never time the paddle out, but in the dark its a good place to be. Bait fish sprayed the surface in several places. The new sounder needed some tuning but I got it to where I was satisfied. Stopped by #10 buoy and began to scan the bottom looking for sign. Sporadic mid water (5-7m) schools indicated baitfish, the snaps look more like squiggles on the bottom. I only brought along the softbait outfit, normally I hedge my bets with cut bait as well, maybe its because I'm not all that comfortable fishing lures only. Call it the cutting of the umbilical cord, soft baits only make a lot of sense - no dicking around with cut baits (everything in a kayak is double the finicketiness), no managing 2 rods as well as paddle. So this trip was to cut the smelly bait cord as it were. The tide was scooting and the drogue was useless, with no breesze I just scooted along. Staying on top of schools was impossible, in the course of playing a single fish I would be taken 50 metres. Spent a lot of time repositioning, not so much time catching fish. Got 5 for the morning & kept 2. Bite time was early and 4 of the fish were taken before 7 am. The next 90 minutes coughed one fish, several plucks on the softie and not much else. Dropping the bait intro the bottom hugging schools proved fruitless - those babies had their jaws clamped shut. The pasddle back was harder than it should have been, a NW had sprung up and with even with the tide weakening it was hard going against wind & tide. Home before 10 and cleaned up the gear and fish. Crumbed snapper - yum!

Weather

Foiled again. This has been a mutha of a year for fishing with Nik, weather has systematically destroyed each and every one of our fishing plans. Aiming for a kayak fish tomorrow morning in the Rangi Channel, maybe can get some fresh snaps & test the new sounder (new in the off season).

Preparing for Mr. Kingi

I like BIG flies for kingis. Lots of experts say a 2/0 or smaller is fine but I want the fly to get noticed and to get bitten. I'm fishing with Nik tomorrow and maybe Monday, we'll go looking for a marlin and then fish the evening kingi rise on one of the shoals. Not that I'm short of flies but I tied some up in preparation.

Mega Mushies in 4/0


Got lots of WR leaders tied, may as well fish IGFA legal as there's every chance of a big one turning up. Need a fish of about 25kg to get things going on that front.

Generic Kahawai type fly, again 4/0


Hope the weather gods play fair.

First of the 1st

Got in a New Year's trout trip today. Travelled down to a mate of Tim's place to fish a stream I'd read and thought about, funnily enough its never jumped to top of mind when thinking "hmmmmm where to go tomorrow". Based on today I will go back, maybe a couple of shots a season would be about right. Its a gravel and small boulder pastoral stream and I was lucky to be there 2 days after a fresh - it was mint. Leaving the car up at GD.308's place I walked down stream and rigged up a parachute dry with a trailing nymph and began to prospect. After a perfectly pleasant 5 hours on the water I'd covered less than 2 km and hit at least 20 fish, landing 11. Plenty slashed at the dry and missed, which will give some indication of the nature of the stream, that sort of thing is typical in those fast flowing waters. Fish of the day (there are 2!) a spanking 4.5lb brown that was sitting right where he should have been at the tail of a long slow pool. I didn't have my net but had my hand around his tail before he gave a violent wiggle and dislodged the fly... and me. No matter, touched him so I'll count him as landed. The 'bows were fat as harry the horse and one guy gave me the hell upstream boring run through 2 more pools before I landed him. In fact that was the last fish of the day and a great way to end.

May 2010 continue in this vein!

Sharking Hell!

Got an email on Saturday night from Nik. One of his regular clients, Bob Seddon from Idaho is across. Bob has a penchant for big fish on the fly rod, and last year had an epic day on the kings at East Cape.


This year Nik had a wee accident with his boat trailer and some roadworks. The springs popped on an unsealed ridge in the road. Reminiscent of our Parengarenga trip 3 years ago, except we walked away pretty much unscathed. he wasn't so lucky this time.

So he took Bob on a mission in Tauranga Harbour to look for ooglies. And boy did they score!




Burleying no less than 3 bronzies up, Bob flicked out a fly, got a hook up and an hour later was posing with his prize. Not bad I reckon!!! There is definitely room for the 15 weight in one's arsenal!

Forum bowhunt

It has been many years since I pronged anything of significance with the bow. Over the years I've killed a number of goats including a really big fecker in the Awakino, so once the forum bowhunt was in planning I just had to jump aboard. I'll say upfront that Shanks did a marvellous job of managing quite a reasonable crowd of hunters - not an easy task by any means. Got to meet a bunch of new people and enjoy hearing their stories. Plenty of high jinks and high drama, all in good fun. Rather than a blow by blow I'll just say that my interest in shooting a pig with the bow has increased significantly.... I did get some chances but my shots went high, even though I held low on the 20m pin. Practice makes perfect and not practicing is a poor excuse, but missing at 10m is ridiculous - especially 4 times in a row. Overall a marvellous day's hunting. Good people, good times...

Day II

Imagine this - waking up in paradise next to a pristine stream, under a fly camp and right by your parked chopper. Very surrealistic. A quick breakfast of porridge and stuff and Pete warms up the taxi, then takes off with TT to find our fishing water for the day. As it happens we're pretty much gorged in at camp, with a canyon upstream and deep water and cliffs downstream. Mark and I wait until Pete reappears and then we're off, flying upstream to wide spot in the riverbed. We land and set up, this time taking the rifle.
The fish are sharper here, less apologetic or forgiving, almost as if they have received pressure - and who knows? They may have. TT gets on the board but I muff my only decent shot by hooking the bottom right in his face...

Mark gets a nice piece of water to prospect, so I grab the rifle and move up to inspect a small gulley. Poking my head around the corner and holy hell there's a deer looking at me. I freeze and tell TT to keep still, throw up the rifle, centre the cross hairs on her neck - CLICK! Empty chamber! Cranking a round in I marvel that she hasn't moved and again take aim and drop her cleanly with a neck shot that takes out her spine. And that's my first 'do it yourself' bush deer in the bag. Mark's got some kevlar twine so we hang her and I take out her guts, remove her head and prop her open with a stick to cool off. We fish on upriver but after an hour have reached the next impassable gorge so we turn and head back down. At the deer spot, I decide that a carry would be unecessary and biff her in the creek on a string - and walk her down! The lazy man's carry!
Soon we're back at the chopper and we discuss fishing options. I'm conscious that the carcass is heavy so tell the lads that I'll butcher her while they head out to the next spot in the chopper. Pete tells me he'll be an hour tops, so I get to work skinning her and have the deer processed in roughly 45 minutes. Back steaks, eye fillets, legs and rump. All bagged. Now's where it went a bit scary... after 2.5 hours there's no sign of the chopper. Away to the south its getting a bit darker. I have my day bag, fire lighting stuff, knife, light, a deer of course - but my jacket's in the chopper and if they've gone down and hit the EPIRB its still an overnighter by the time we're found. So I set to work building a biv. I need wind and waterproofness more than anything so build sturdy walls with logs, lay over a roof of ponga fronds and the deer skin, put down a comfy bed of dry grass, make a fireplace, gather wood and generally make the shelter as comfy as I can. I have on my merino mid weight top and longjohns and a pair of shorts... but christ it's gonna be a chilly and wet night if I spend it out here.


Deciding to try and get everything dry before a night out, I prepared my fire and took off my boots and socks. Just as I was striking the first light, the chopper came over the ridge and Pete brought her in. We had a quick chat and Pete explained that his fuel load was lower than he liked so he's not come back until now, and that with weather approaching we were pulling out. All good as our plan b flight path was dodgy to say the least. Packing the meat into the chopper we took off and met the lads on the Motu. A quick hop back to Opotiki and I put the call through to the olds to meet me at Thames in an hour. A terrific flight back and I was on the road, reflecting that just over an hour ago I was preparing for a night out - and now here I was in my car.

All in all a great trip, thanks to generosity of others.

The time between blogs

.. has been spent being 'busy'. Just had 2 full days training on effective leadership, which was to incorporate ways of finding an extra hour per day by changing work habits. Stuff like planning your day in advance, not letting email interrupt you... in theory that stuff is fine, but its not really my style. I already prioritise, I mean everyone does, right?

Ok, REPORT TIME!

The pre Xmas bash was a beaut. I must confess though, that it didn't 'feel' like the normal pre-Xmas bash and I can't quite put my finger on why. Not to detract from the whole thing though, I mean it was really great but the inclusion of the 'third person' in the trip sounds like it might be sort of permanent, which is ok, but not really what the pre-Xmas bash has been about so far. Ok, must acknowledge the effort that TT put into making this trip happen. Landing permits, organising the absent minded (pre-occupied) surgeon, leaving me alone to sort my work crap out, he really did a sterling job. Thursday before the trip, well I took it off to spend with family - until 1.30 that was, when I got the call from TT to get over to his place so we could go to Mechanics Bay, meet the pilot, weigh in etc. Pilot was late, and DOC still had not given the permit to land, which itself required much toing and froing and frantic calls, most of all it needed the surgeon's signature as it was his chopper we were going in. So a bit of frantic driving around town and we ended up with our crap together - and I also ended up with a stinking pounding headache, like I haven't had in years. Not having kids means that TT doesn't understand time pressures, so I was late home to get Rilee's stuff together. That taken care of, finished packing. The key things was that in a Robbie R-44 Raven II, there really isn't too much space available. Literally, the seat you are sitting on has a cavity under it, and that's your storage. Up early Friday, check forecast and she's good until Saturday night. Into car, rod (check!), rifle (check!), fishing gear (check!), sleeping gear (check!), day bag with ammo, survival stuff (check!), food (check!).. and already its looking like too much to pack in the chopper. I have to drive to Thames aerodrome, as taking off from Mechanics Bay under full load with tail wind is dicey. So the plan is to meet at Thames at 7.30, load me in, refuel and then get on our way.


So we meet up and our crew is:

TT
Mark Gray (plastic surgeon to the stars)
Pete Matheson (pilot)
Me


Amazingly, everything fits in the chopper. Pete gives us safety drill and we're off over the Kaimais. Our beeline takes us from Thames out to the coast at Whangamata, then we turn south along the coast and 'track' (chopper term) towards Tauranga. Air Traffic Control clears us and we're on our way down the coast, Whakatane, Ohope, Ohiwa and then presto we're in Opotiki.
We land and refuel, check GPS, discuss emergency escape options for inclement weather and then we're up and into the Raukumaras, and down into the Motu bed. Our target is a Motu trib, a beautiful stream that I've fished upstream, that holds a good head of nice brownies, including some beasts. The first thing I notice is that there are tracks everyhwere - deer, pigs and goats. The second thing I notice is the fish on the feed at the head of the pool we've landed near. Its all over the place in typical brownie feeding mode, holding in the slacker water and covering metres scooping up food. A couple of promising casts but then as the nymph is entering the zone the current picks up the line, induces drag and I can imagine the fly zooming up in the water column past the trouts nose. He doesn't appreciate it at all and melts away under the fast water across the pool. Damn, rusty, not good.

We leve Pete with the chopper to meditate and read his book. He's quite observant, pointing out the hoof marks of a decent sized deer and where it entered the bush quite recently. I imagine someone with a strong hunting nose would have been salivating! Never the less, the rifle stayed with Pete along with instructions to shoot any deer or pigs he saw. Away up the trib we went. Beautiful crystal clear water, gravel runs and deep pools. I rigged for the deep stuff and TT went light with a bead strung under a dry. Mark went for the Tongariro rig. I struck first, taking a brownie deep in the eye of a blue green pool. It gave an ok account of itself before it came ashore for a photo. Mark got one ashore after multiple chances, and we moved up the stream fishing the likely spots. Fishing with a newbie can be stressful, especially after mutiple duffed attempts, and Mark gave us a few of those. Bombing sitters... anyway that's the name of the game. Then we really started finding fish, out and about and on the feed. I picked my way up one side of some real holding water, while TT and Mark played with fish on the other. At the head of the run on my side was a shed sized boulder, pinning another smaller boulder and a series of smaller and larger boulders downstream. Overall it created a 5m square patch of deep holding water with conflicting currents, and in that conlict lived the biggest fish I've seen for a while. Took a few 'subtle' casts with the biggest tungsten bomb I could muster, to get it on his nose. He took, I hit and he went for it, boring downstream under the boulder at the tail of the pool. Fought him hard for a minute but nah, he got me. Sob. Looked up to see TT into a good fish which he landed and killed for dinner.

We fished up to 3pm then turned and headed down to meet up with Pete and fly upstream to find a camping spot. A bit of circling and we came down on a likley spot and set up camp. A fire, some pasta and smoked chicken, and then a bit of sniper time at goats on a face opposite the stream. The goats were about 200m away and steeply elevated so shooting was a challenge - and I ended up with an 'eyebrow'. Day 1 done.

The fruits of victory would be ashes in our....

Well, prelim results are out for the election and it looks like we've nabbed 4 places on the council. Craig, AJ, Guy and me got on. Not quite what we'd hoped for and the margin between getting a place or not is tiny overall. The highest poller (no surprises) is John Atkinson, sure enough the hidden, non-vocal angling contingent paid off for old (76 years old..) John-boy. He took 477 votes. Guy was the lowest poller to 'win' a place with 384. A spread of 93 votes across the 'winners'. Horribly, Tim for now has missed a spot on council by 12 votes. I am certain deep down, that people we know didn't get out and vote. Its been quite an emotional time, and I for one feel drained by a combination of frustration, from time to time some real rage, and the long year that this has been.

So what can we hope to achieve? Well, in the background the plan has been to look and learn for a period, and then slowly apply pressure change. So we will.

Around the traps

Things are happening, despite the SW misery that is gripping the land and has done so for the past 5 weeks. I'm beginning to think that my tomato crop is doomed. The passionfruit vine has some flowers, but not as many as usual. Hell, this is miserable weather, but then again, I do get to play outside in my new jackets - even if i do look like the suburban commando try-hard (that i don't want to be)action man type. Bloke at work told me its La Nina or something like that. All I know is that yesterday I lept from bed, ready for a nice fish, checked the forecast and went back to sleep. 30 minutes later the sky clouded, the wind picked up and I knew I'd made a good sensible decision. Looking ahead 2 or 3 weeks to the expedition, I can pretty much guaranty that we wont be flying into no low lying fog banks in the area we have in mind... maybe we will get lucky and have some decent weather but sadly I'm not that hopeful. Tim left message last night, he's been out after BOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRs again and has shot a nice big animal. Good to know that the fiddling he's done with the rifle seems to have worked. Fingers crossed that i can use it in anger in a couple of weeks.

Oh, and found this on the whaleoil blog, i quite like it:

Less than 7 days

F&G election voting closes in under 7 days. Then we'll know whether all this work has been worth it. And then I'll publish what I've learned about cornered animals. In the mean time some nice new prezzies have arrived for the duck party, and for me.

Item 1 - 7 dozen 4 oz GHG "Keel Grabber" deke weights on bungees. A great idea, someone's thinking.

Item 2 - Kobuk neoprene wading jacket. I plan to use this on very rainy days, and also on the yak

item 3 - Drake MST Strata coat. MAX4 camo, my favourite pattern.

in return I'm coughing up a Columbia Quad parka that is simply too 'tall' for me in XL Tall size. Mossy Oak Shadow Grass II pattern, zip out liner, "zap fleece" lined detachable hood. 3 watchers on Trade Me. All good.

Work is getting on my nerves again. Home time.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention our bro' Hone. Hone's family has a rich history of abusive behaviour and the country bows before them. Maybe not this time. Maybe the 'one rule for the Haraweras, one foe\rveryone else" crap is over. I doubt it.

Pre Xmas planning

For the past 3 years TT and i have got together for a boys pre Xmas bash. To date we've:

> Camped on the edge of hydro lake catching huge numbers of trout over the weedbeds, a perect December passtime

> Flown into the headwaters of the Mohaka after trout

> Headed to Murchison and fished and hunted some pretty special country

This year I've left the organisation to him; work has been busy and the election seems to have taken on a life of its own. And my, what a good job he's done. A private chopper, pilot is his mate, some vague murmers about heading east and I've been told to "bring a deer gun!". He means a rifle of course but that's just me being pedantic. So I'm looking forward to this, I love chopper flights as much as anything else i've ever done, and a lot more than some!

Tonight i'll call hime and work out the finer details, already Tim's said i can borrow the 7mm....

Long live the Pre Xmas bash!

First hint of fine weather

I was lucky. Lucky to be able to get away for a fish, specifically a small stream mission its certainly been a while. I had a water in mind, the minestromeaha, sometimes called the aromathinseme or the mistrahmeenoa. I didn't vist her last season at all, as i concentrated on my still water trout fishing in the hydro lakes. It's hard to pass up 20 - 50 fish days casting to slurping trout over weedbeds... Anyway, she's a grand little stream the mistrahmeenoa, small enough to feel intimate, but holding enough early season volume to feel that its not quite summer yet. I know Milo had fished her twice, and Jax, each accompanied on one occasion by another angler, so in 31 days she'd had (at least) 5 angler days not including mine. Any fish holed up would surely have seen the other anglers (they're good, but not invisible) but she's a feeder out of a bigger water so every chance of fresh blood moving in. The forecast was for fine sunny weather and only gentle breezes - a 4 weight day! The 7'6" 4 weight can be a joy to fish, but she can also be a nuisance in waters where lots of repeat casting is a must. Never the less, of the 2 rods I packed I reached for her over the 5 weight because hell, some days you just have to take your chances! The first fish I saw was hard to pick in the early morning sun with ripples on the water, I just saw the tail move and put the fly across to cover the fish and the dry fly indicator slid sideways. A good wee fish, typical of the early season, a bit skinny and on the lighter side of a pound and a half. That was it for the next hour - although I scanned the water carefully and had perfect spotting conditions I couldn't pick up a fish anywhere. I fished the holding water anyway, to no avail. One of the things about this stream is that the bed had been artificially modified some years ago, and she's still settling down. This means that pools move, or are still developing each season - new water for the price of old! Anyway I moved up to a stretch that had been nice to me before, slid in behind the big old flax bush and moved the leaves for a view. Bugger me if I didn't spot 6 fish almost straight away! And bugger me if one at the back of the pool that i hadn't seen didn't spot me straight away and bolt through the rest, sending them into a mad panic! The next run was a beaut, deep slot, slower edges and cover in the form of a willow trunk. I saw a fish slash at the nymph second or third drift and lifted for him; no dice. I covered him again and again, but when I moved up to view the pool nothing at the tail. The nymph must have spooked him, perhaps he had recently bitten something artificial? I re-rigged to explore the deeper water of the slot and discovered one of those unnerving backward swirls up the side of the pool that drags your line off to the side, upsetting the drft. The nymphs were swimming bang down the middle but line was curling back upstream despite me keeping as much off the water as possible. Suddenly, everything stopped. I hadn't seen any giveaway movement but lifted anyway and the water erupted and a fish bolted off under the willow... the 6lb leader popped like a popping thing. That put my heart in my mouth. Rerigged I fished out the slot for nothing else and then went to a lighter nymph with wiggly legs and red shiney head and prospected some shallower water behind a low hanging willow. I sensed the fish rather than saw anything and raised the rod - locked up tight! And what a surprise, this bow was a good 2 lb's heavier than anything I expected from previous experience in this water - and it proceeded to drag me downstream the poor little twig bent in half. And I snapped him (a very good jack) off within feet of the bank when he did a final mental blast off downstream. Too much, I was getting spanked! It only got better though, with a few fish getting banked much to my relief. And the browns - holy smoke I found a couple of eye popping bruisers and even got one to the bank - and he was pushing a solid 5lbs. A bigger one further upstream held position in a deep slot but spooked off when I moved my arm to cast. A couple of deep bodied 'bows in the 3-4lb class, a smaller model and that was my 5 hours on the stream.

I doubt the bigger ones will hang around much longer as the days warm. She holds a solid head of smaller fish over the hot months as well as the odd bigger brown, but nothing of the size that i had found today. I can say with hand on heart that I was surprised out of my skin at the size and condition of the fish, definitely bigger by a good pound to pound-and-a-half than ever before and a sign of a health fishery.

The 5 weight would have been a better option, more control. (excuses excuses)

But those bust offs will stay with me longer than if i had caught everything, and to me that's imprtant, it'll keep me coming back.

Trapping the ponds

Suddenly a very good and very viable mustelid/rodent trap is available on the market. I say suddenly because I had heard about them, the forum had chatted about them and now they are being delivered! Guy has 10, Mike O'Donnell has some and I plan on getting some for our ponds and for around the hut.

The trap is called the "Henry", named after one of NZ's early conservationists (without googling and from memory I think the dude ended up in Helensville - or Dargaville - killing himself? A far cry from the wilds of the deep south...)and it is a gas operated trap that beans the predator when it sticks its head where it ought not. The single biggest issue of trapping the ponds is resetting the traps. They are always triggered but its a waste of time if the only get reloaded every 6 weeks.



Borrowing Guy's description of what happens - "the rat or mustelid sticks its head up in the clear cowelling to get at the bait (which it can't as its in the little pottle on the right hand side. They have a bait that currently stays active for 6 months and are working on synthetic bait that will last longer. The victim pushes a small trigger that releases a piston. This piston smacks the vitim in the head at 30kg/cm2 which is more than the DOC 200's.
The piston then resets as its spring loaded ready to go again, apperently the dead victim encourages more vermin to come and often they eat the victim 1st before entering the trap!"

Now that's some punch, that's gonna wreck your day if you're a baddie! At $180 a pop and enough CO2 to fire 12 times, 2 traps could feasibly knock out a couple of predators per month. With the rats in the swamp i reckon we'd need more than 1 cartridge per trap per year though....