Fly fishing

Saturday, Joelle and I decided to try our luck fly fishing for salmon on the Rakaia river.  The Rakaia is apparently world famous for this and the big run is from Feb to March.  This is strange to me as salmon in North America run in the spring, and here, it is late summer/early fall.  I was relieved to find that I hadn't forgotten how to fly cast since I went salmon fishing in New Brunswick with my dad when I was a teen.

The first photo is of MT Hutt as seen from our street on a clear day.

I went to the local hunting and fishing place and had myself outfitted with a 8 weight 9 ft rod, a floating line, a reel, a tapered leader and some nymph flies. So far so good.  I spent some time talking to some of the locals who mostly fish at the river mouth with sinking spoons or wiggly rubber lures. I opted to be a purist and try the more Zen approach of fly fishing.  Then came the debate between the Rangitata, the Rakaia or just going to one of the lakes to try for speckled or brown trout.  Since the salmon run is only for a few more weeks I felt I should just at least give them a try.  As such, I resorted to good old Google maps and took a look along the shoreline of the river to see where  there was likely to be a good pool of relatively slow moving water to which I could get access without having to cross over private property.  I found a likely spot, and Saturday morning, Joelle and I departed with little hope of actually getting a fish but hopefully enjoying  a trek along the river.
For those of you with the intent of planning a trip off road somewhere via Google earth satellite view...know this:  Google earth does not show elevation/topography well unless you look specifically at the topographical maps.  Needless to say, when we arrived where the road ended and there should have been a leisurely 1/2 km walk though some scrub to the river, the walk was preceded by descent down a 200 ft cliff.

This is the cliff as seen from the river and as seen from the top.  Hopefully Joelle adds some perspective.

Fortunately, someone had the kindness and forethought to leave a steel cable embedded in the cliffside we could use to avoid a Wiley Coyote-esque tumble.  Once we made it to the bottom of the cliff,  it turned out the scrub consisted largely of thorn bushes.  There was however, one palm tree.

Eventually we made it to the river.

Once there, the water was very turbid from the thunderstorm of the previous day.  Not the best of fishing conditions. But JoJo had fun playing in the mud and making a non-newtonian fluid/mud ball.

No fish to be had, but good exercise and a morning in the sun in the wilds of New Zealand. I  plan to try again on Thursday.