Fishing with David Lambroughton

Early last week, after a stint working at a hazelnut farm on the North Island, I caught a bus to the town of Turangi on the south shore of Lake Taupo.  I had initially planned to stay one night with the option of extending my visit if the fishing was good.  However, immediately after arriving, I met a guy named Mark at my hostel who is also fly fishing here in New Zealand.  Mark guides salmon fishing in British Columbia, and his boss had put him in touch with fishing photographer David Lambroughton.

Check out David's site at http://davidlambroughton.com/  David's work has appeared in all major fly fishing magazine publications, catalogs, and he is well known for his annual fishing photography calendar, which I encourage people to check out on his site.

An hour after arriving in Turangi, I was checking out the river levels with David and Mark, and we had established a rough plan to fish together the rest of the week.  The best part of traveling is the way that these things can work out, especially within the brotherhood of fly fishermen.

Mark and I fished 5 days around Taupo, 4 of them with David.  We hit rivers of all sizes, from spring creeks to wide rivers flowing into Lake Taupo.  Mark and I both ended up 'modeling' for some of David's shots, and I am proud to say that some of them came out quite well. 

Spring Creek fishing our first day with David

Yes, it is filled with trout

   

We caught fish, though I have no photo proof, and it was fun to sight fish again and land some nice rainbows in the 3-4 pound range and a nice brown that weighed 5. 

Running North

After leaving Queenstown, I hitch-hiked north to Mount Cook Village.  Weather in the area is unpredictable, so I planned on spending a couple of nights there.  I found a campground, and a prime spot given to me (amazingly enough), by the same German girls who had taken my picture while fishing a couple weeks before.

I got my weather window the following day, and spent a bunch of time outside and also at the Sir Edmund Hillary Museum.

 

I left Mount Cook, via hitching, and stayed a night in Lake Tekapo.  The town is small, and known for the old stone church built by the lake edge.

I then made my way to Christchurch.  The city center has been ruined, and is a mix of total ruin and ultra-modern development, as the central shopping district is now made up of stacked shipping containers filled with shops and cafes.  It will be interesting to see how the city rebuilds over my future fishing trips.

After visiting a friend outside Christchurch, I continued north to the town of Kaikoura.  The land mass comes to a steep shelf near the shore here, so ocean life is prolific along the coast here.  In the morning, one could watch dozens of Dusky dolphins playing along the beach.

I did find an opportunity to do some fishing in a coastal ditch near there, and was surprised to catch a few small sea-run browns amongs the trash in the creek.

                                       

After leaving Kaikoura, I worked on an amazing vineyard in the Marlborough region with a family I now consider friends.  After initially planning to only stay 3-7 days, I stayed 10, and was relieved to have a private room and bathroom (!!!!) to myself.  Janet's cooking was amazing, and I hope I can visit again someday.

Time to go to work with the grapes

Woops sorry.  Netting grapes

After leaving the vineyard, I went to the North Island and helped with the hazelnut harvest near Otaki for a couple of days. 

Alpacas at the hazelnut farm

Removing hazelnut husks

 

                                                                                                                                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Update

When people send me links for their travel blogs, I kind of expect them to be regularly updated.  That said, I now find myself having not written here in almost a month (!).

Since my last posting, I've hitch-hiked and taken a couple buses from the bottom of the  South Island to the top, seen Mount Cook, possibly broken my right foot, caught some sea-runs out of a garbage ditch, and worked on an amazing pinot vineyard.  I left the South Island today, and am headed north to Otaki on the North Island tomorrow morning to work the hazelnut harvest for a couple of days.

In a couple of days I hope to be in Taupo, and will upload some pictures and stories when I'm at a computer again.

James Wish-he-B. Fishin

The Take

One of the best things about fly fishing, the thing that keeps me coming back every time, is 'the take.'  It is the moment when you know the fish - in New Zealand, most often a big fish - is going to take your fly.  He's seen it, and he's coming after the presentation, and you know that something interesting is about to happen.  Sometimes the fish will take the fly and I'll mess up, sometimes the hook doesn't connect, occasionally he takes the fly and spits it, and sometimes I'll be lucky enough to do it all right and catch one here and there.


In search of the next take, I left Queenstown last week and spent a week on a backcountry river in search of good fishing.  I had decided to hitch hike to the trailhead, and went out to the road at 8:20am last Thursday.  I got a ride with a guy from Alaska part of the way, then a short ride with a couple guys running a boat shuttle vehicle, and the last leg of the ride with a Kiwi fly fishing guide and his American client.  The trailhead sees a bit less traffic than I expected, and I'm grateful to all of them  for their help, as it could have taken quite a while on the rural roads.

Queenstown the last night before leaving

Waiting for a ride

After hopping out at the river where the road ends, I spent my first day fishing in the lake and near the river mouth, and saw quite a few fish.  In 2 months in New Zealand I had only broken off one trout prior to this trip, and the first fish I hooked at the river mouth snapped my 2x line without a problem.  Shortly thereafter I snapped my fly line while double hauling in  the wind (line wrapped on the reel seat, I think), and I was 'gutted,' as they say here.  I ended up being able to strip some of the line coating off, splicing the lines and coating with some UV Sealant for an adequate solution that has held up perfectly since.

The mouth of the river

After camping at the trailhead the first night, I hiked upstream a few hours to my first site and set up a basecamp for 2 nights.  This river is managed on a Beat System in which anglers must reserve the river sections they wish to fish prior to their arrivals, and I had been given the lowest section for my first 2 days (it prevents helicopters and other anglers from dropping in on each other and the possibility of bloodshed).  I found that the fish in this river are smaller on average than elsewhere in New Zealand, but that numbers were much higher than anywhere I'd visited here; much more akin to the way we fish rivers in the States.  Blind fishing, or casting to likely looking water without spotting fish, was possible in some places, but I still fished mostly to sighted fish.

Some German girls happened by when I was landing this one for a photo opportunity

Guess what kind of flies I was using

I moved camp further upstream for my 4th and 5th nights in order to fish the upper 2 Beats.  Camping is allowed off of the trails and the valley bottoms, which are private lands that allow public access for hunting and fishing purposes.  This ended up being a good thing, as I explored a spot I had selected on my topo maps and found a secret waterfall recessed into the hillside.  The waterfall is not visible from the trails and is only accessible by crossing the river and a big field, so it was a neat place to have my tent for a few nights, and also provided a steady supply of water for cooking. 

Typical rainbow in this stream

The river is an  interesting mix of bouldery gorges and large meadows

Boulder section

Meadow section

Overall, the fishing was quite good.  On other rivers we've been landing 2 or 3 trout on a really good day, and I got 21 fish in 4 days fishing on this river, so I was pretty happy with that.

4-5 pound rainbows in this tiny water!

Some of the strangest trout water I've ever seen

On my last day I walked all the way out about 4.5 hours to the trailhead, waited 2 hours for a ride from other hikers, and spent my 6th night on the shores of a lake on the way back to Queenstown.  On the hike out I met 2 Brits named Lewis and Steve who are doing working on a cool filming project fishing around the South Island, and I may meet up with them later in March for some fishing on the North Island (check out their site  at http://trouttrackersproject.blogspot.co.nz) From there I got a ride from a very nice American couple that was traveling through Queenstown, and I rode all the way back with them.

I'll be headed north towards Mount Cook tomorrow morning via some fishing spots I learned about while stateside this past fall.  Until then, tight lines.

Out and About Queenstown

Queenstown sometimes gets a bad rap.  Though there are certainly options to bungy jump, sky dive, jet boat, para glide, hang glide, party through the night, etc., and the town attracts the people with plenty of money to do it all, Queenstown has lots of aspects that would make it attractive to anyone.

In fact, I often find myself walking around and feeling like the only thing missing on the scene is Sean Connery zipping around town in an old Aston Martin in a sharkskin suit, or sipping martinis in on a bowling club veranda.  There is something about the place that feels old-fashioned, and whether it is the old sailboats or British propriety  of many of the Kiwis, parts of the city feel like the 1960s to me.

The coal-powered TSS Earnslaw in its 100th year on Lake Wakatipu

While walking around yesterday, I was trying to figure a good way to describe Queenstown, and the best I could come up with was to take the small lakeside town of Ephraim where my family used to vacation on the Great Lakes, make it 10 times bigger, and place the Grand Tetons across the lake from town.  That's pretty much what it looks like.

Queenstown Gardens on peninsula to left, town behind and to right

King's Coronation Boat House Cafe

My favorite spot in town is Queenstown Gardens, which takes up an entire peninsula that juts into Lake Wakatipu adjacent to town.  The original settler in Queenstown, William Rees, was an amateur arborist, and planted all kinds of trees in the park.  The massive Ponderosa Pines and Douglas Firs, matched by the arid climate  and sandy soil, makes the park feel like summer on the Metolius River.

The extensive gardens are well looked after, complete with stone bridges over canals, rose gardens, and an old Bowling Club dating from 1904 (a similar vintage as most of its enthusiasts, it seems).

At the far end of the peninsula, is a small gathering of trees and rocks covered with plaques, most of which are dedicated to Queenstown boys killed on Everest, K2, and other climbing ascents.  It's a good reflective little spot on the far side of a large rose garden.

Worth reading this and next plaque

I'm headed out tomorrow for 6 nights in the backcountry on one of the rivers close to Queenstown.  I'll be hitch-hiking there and back, and the weather looks perfect for it.  When I return, I will post pictures of what I find.  In about a week, I think I'll head north towards Mount Cook then look to WWOOF (volunteer on a farm in return for room and meals) or get a job at a winery or an orchard for 2 weeks.