The last time Father and son duo, David and Sam, fished with us was about nine years ago. We went down the river from Murupara and it was a long day. We remember when it was because Blair was on crutches with his badly broken knee. He still guided the second canoe without issue. I had to carry all the gear though I recall.
David, aged 84, had a knee replacement a year before and was still recovering. But he was very keen. After us they were doing two different raft trips and planned to fish a bunch of their other old haunts before flying back to Oz. Pretty keen I reckon. So we wanted to make this day as special as possible.
We put in at the Mangamako shortly before 10 AM. The river was the lowest I had seen in many years. It changed so many places that suddenly became fishable. I had Sam to start. I armed him with a big deer hair cicada wither rubber legs with a bead head pheasant tail with rubber legs as a dropper. Sam reckoned it was three minutes later when he got a nice brown trout on the dropper. This was a very good start.
I tied on a big bead head olive bugger for David to flick around as Blair floated him down river. I think he broke it off in a tree so Blair tied on a great big cicada dry fly. Remember, we were floating down river at pace, dropping flies into all of the likely places. You do not get a second chance in most cases. Blair and David were floating just behind us. Sam missed the cast to the spot where I saw a fish rise. in a really tight spot. David did not miss and caught a great rainbow trout (see above right). It was a very good start indeed.
Blair took David to sight fish a rainbow we spotted in a side branch of the river. It was taking too long so Sam and I continued down river. It would not take the cicada and Blair saw it eating what he said were dragonflies. So he put on a dumbell-eyed dragonfly larva. The trout were actually eating damsel flies and Blair is a bit of an egg. Anyway, it took the dragonfly and David landed another big bow.
Sam continued using the dry/dropper combo and picked up a brown on the cicada this time. We had just hit the head of a rapid and Sam saw a small break behind a rock in the middle of the river. He got his combo in perfectly and struck silver. He had to fight it all the way down the rapid. Blair and David watched and were were quite entertained. You can see the rapid in the background of the photo.
Sam and I got down to a nice nymphing run where we would have lunch when the other two showed up. I set Sam up with a Chubby Chernoble dry fly as an indicator and put a bead head hare and copper about 2 m below. Not a setup I would choose but he was fishing the slower and deeper end of the run. I saved the shallow top end for David to do some nymphing. The very bottom end of the long run did not produce but Sam was soon into rainbow after rainbow on the dropper as he moved up. One step, one cast. He even got one on the big dry fly indicator!
David and Blair arrived and Blair went about making a fire to cook a couple of trout and some sausages. Sam was having fun below and I walked David into position at the top of the run. I put on a standard yellow wool indicator a small epoxy bomb size 12 with a pheasant tail nymph below. It was a shallow riffle and we were not much more than ankle deep. David was right into it. I told him to cast straight upstream in literally ankle deep water and he caught a nice rainbow. It was full on action and we barely moved. After a half dozen fish we took a break for lunch. Blair cooked up fresh trout and sausages with chutneys and bread, fresh grapes, plums and other goodies.
After a short break both wanted to have another go and picked up some more rainbows. They decided they could do that all day long and they almost did. But it was time to move on. I took David in my canoe with the flash seat and changed him back to a big, black deer hair cicada. We found an eddy with several big rainbows tailing and David hooked one of them. Just before going in the net the big bow made one last run. David could not respond in time. It broke the ten pound fluoro tippet like it was nothing.
I put on a parachute madam X with an elk hair caddis as a dropper. That made it a dry/dry combo. One is the attractor, the other is what the trout were actually eating. We floated along, taking in the scenery and enjoying the tranquility with a few casts in between. Sam and Blair decided to do a runner and get the vehicles sorted. David and I decided to try one more spot by the bridge where we were pulling out. The big brown slowly sipped the big dry fly...I counted slowly in my head and broke the silence with, STRIKE! David did as told or just reacted with a pull of the rod when I scared the crap out of him. He did not see the gentle take. After a deep battle, we landed the best trout of the day. What a way to finish an awesome day.
These two always compete with each other. Sam is a way better caster but judgement goes to David; he simply caught more fish! Maybe next time, Sam. Let's hope there is.
The whole day reminded me a lot of my Dad and all the adventures we had together on this river. They will never be forgotten...
