trout tragic to nz, day 2.

Ken Gargett · October 20, 2010

Miraculously, I made it through the night. A very leisurely day today, as a mid-morning return to the glorious Orcland Airport for a terrifyingly small plane down to Nelson. I see that the fire hose is still filling the neighbour's pool. And there is a sign I missed, allowing for the rooms to be booked for short term stays – as in a few hours. I'd like to think it is so someone could rest briefly before continuing their travels but I've seen some of the people wandering the corridors (think Joy out of 'My Name is Earl' after ten years on crack) and I fear not.

Get to the airport, enjoying a beer (NZ does do the small beer thing better than we have yet managed) and they announce a forthcoming flight, fortunately not mine, will be delayed – not because the 'incoming aircraft is late arriving' or the usual crap. This one is delayed as 'one of the incoming passengers has vomited in the cabin and we need to clean it up'. I see about ten people in the waiting room go bright green.

Meet Boris at the Nelson Airport. I can never forget the time I flew out of there and they sent all the passengers out to the plane but no pilot and crew – they were waiting on the wrong plane. This time on the return, I was given a bag of fishing gear to return to Orcland to a mate. So as I checked in, wanting to do the right thing, I said that I had just been given the second bag and was told it was fishing gear but I had never opened it. The response? 'Oh, don't worry. I'm sure it is fine.” Security is not a high priority here.

Boris and I head down to the Alpine Lodge, nice place to stay, terrific people. Has all the basics covered, a good bar and just the sort of meals you want if you've been fishing all day. Lots of snow on the surrounding hills – as I don't own waders, touch concerned. It is seriously chilly but the locals laugh – day and a half ago, the max was 3 degrees and it was snowing. At least not that bad at the moment.

We've plotted our attack and they are all exciting rivers, most of which I've fished before, but then Boris throws up the possibility of the Deepdale. Today is a glorious day and it is likely to remain so for a few days, whereas for the opening of the season the week before, it was rain, wind and snow. Impossible to fish. As there are also so few Americans still coming over (the GFC has almost killed the Kiwi guiding industry), we think it is highly unlikely anyone has fished the Deepdale all season (all ten days of it). It is enormously tempting.

But the Deepdale needs a camp-out overnight (Rob, if you and Elie are chasing me, not even Lassie could find me there and as the lodge internet allows me to connect but not do emails – no idea why – I'm definitely incommunicado) and a chopper in and out, which blows out the budget completely. Absolutely out of the question. An hour at the lodge, mulling it over, and inevitably I weaken. I can only assume that this is what it is like to be addicted to heroin. I jump on the internet, sell a few shares I really can't afford to, and call Boris. We are on. Turns out we were lucky. An hour later, someone else tries to book the chopper for the Deepdale (if you are in first, it is yours. The pilots will not allow anyone else to share a river).

Why the Deepdale? This is perhaps the most famous of all the big brown trout streams in this region but it is notoriously hard to fish. You need to chopper in, so it is very expensive – far too expensive for me. Also, the fish really are extremely hard to catch and I know quite a few guides in the area who will not touch it because of that. Who wants a grumpy client skunked for the day?

I have had one day in there a few years before when a mate I and fished it with Boris. My mate got one around 7 lbs, the smallest fish we saw all day, and we both lost quite a few monsters. It was the first day I ever had trout fishing where I got skunked, a record of which I was, until then, extremely proud. But this river will do that to you. I figure the river owed me. Sadly, no one explained this to the river.

You will see plenty of big fish but you'll lose or fail to even interest most, if not all of them. That one visit has numerous cruel memories, not least on one occasion, when I, against all odds, had got the over-the-wrong-shoulder, backhand cast working in a pond, where first I had to slither down a cliff before climbing up a bundle of boulders to try and get almost within range of one of two fish, both at least 12-lb'ers. I went so close with the first cast. The fish even turned, came back and had a look at the fly. The next cast had me in mid-backswing when a thousand red hot daggers were buried into my back. I'd picked up a European wasp when slithering and it got stuck in the shirt and finally ran out of its already short-fused sense of humour. A few weeks before, I'd had a heap of wasps, Aussie style, bite me in the face when clearing some trees. That was extremely painful but combined, they didn't come close to this lone assassin. Boris, my mate and the fish all wondered what the hell was happening; why, when stealth and silence were crucial was some flailing idiot screaming blue murder and ripping his clothes off. They all fled in varying directions. Sadly, I could add a few more stories of monsters lost in that day alone. One, in the last pool of the day still hurts so much I could not even begin to try and explain it.

Always promised to come back to the Deepdale and tomorrow we'll see if it is still 'fortress trout'. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bottle of Zacapa and a Monty Edmundo to enjoy next to a small, duck-infested creek before dinner. Having said that, a curious duck has just literally come up to 18 inches from my feet. I offered it the Monty but it had the good graces not to accept but happily sits at my feet, while I smoke. I think it thinks it is a dog. I think it might be dinner.