Kim Kenny is the Shoot Master at Equine Estate. It is a place I have been hanging around for many years as a beater on shoot days. I also process a few feathers from there for Feathergirl. I have known Kim all this time and every year I offer to take him fishing. A few of the guns who shoot at Equine have been out with me and there have been a few good stories. This time he finally accepted the invitation.
Kim had not been trout fishing for a long time. He reckoned it had been a decade or two since he had gone nymphing with his fly rod.
So we headed down the Rangitaiki River and Kim was armed with a spinner. It was a slow start which was not typical for this river this time of year. The braid on my spinning rod broke a couple of times on fish so I decided it was time to change. There was a spot on the bail where the thin braid kept getting caught and was damaging the line. I replaced it with monofilament and we went back to work.
The trout suddenly turned on and plenty of fish were landed. We had a point where Kim hooked six fish in six casts and lost them all. Then I saw the foam line riser and suggested we target it with a dry fly.
Like I said, Kim had not been fly fishing for a long time and had never caught a trout on a dry. So I told him I would put him right in the deep end and catch one on a dry. I tied on a size 14 Goddard Caddis and began the stalk with the canoe. I gave Kim the most basic of instruction and on the hunt we went.
Yup, he did everything wrong for a little while but he got a good cast in to the rising rainbow. The trout sipped the fly and I gave the command to STRIKE! I tend to get a little excited at these times and got pretty loud. The problem was he was retrieving line but was not using his index finger of his casting hand to keep the line from running back out. He was using his mouth and it reminded me of my Dad doing the same thing right up until the last time he ever fished. Because Kim had a lot of slack line, I did not think he set the hook well enough.
Well, he did and after a serious battle, I netted his first ever trout on a dry fly. And what a beautiful trophy it was!
After that Kim did not want to use a spinner any more. Who could blame him? We continued to target sighted fish as we travelled down river. The next one was a medium-sized rainbow on a foam cicada. We carried on and targeted plenty of fish and missed a few and spooked a few.
I tied on an elk hair caddis below the foam cicada to increase his chances. We came to another spot with another large rainbow in position. We talked about it first and made a cast. The rainbow came right up and rejected the cicada then came back right in front of us and took the caddis. I counted to three and Kim struck silver! What a fight that included the rainbow going under a log. We eventually netted an even larger rainbow and Kim was over the moon.
He looked and lost one more on the elk hair caddis then decided he could not be more satisfied with his day.
I bet you he is out there right now practicing his cast.
