We've Returned

Two nights ago, we flew out of the wilderness having safely completed a 5 night heli fishing trip.

Now, picture the South Island of New Zealand.  It doesn't matter if you have never read much about it, just conjure the bits and pieces you might have gathered from the Lord of the Rings movies, fishing magazines, and whatever else.

That's exactly what it looks like.

Everywhere I turn in this country, I find myself saying to the guys "This looks like the cover shot of my 50 Places to Fly Fish Before you Die book," or "Man, that's the classic South Island pool" and so on.  I'm constantly amazing at the juxtaposition of ferns, gin-clear but emerald-tinged rivers, rocky outcrops, and freshwater springs and rivulets spouting into the various valleys we have visited.

When we arrived at the heli pad 7 days ago, we were ready to charge the mountains and rivers hard for a week.  We had planned to take off first thing in the morning, with a 7 am flight time to ensure that we got to our pre-planned spot before any other anglers for the week. 

The ideal New Zealand fishing situation is to fish a river after a 'fresh.'  As the weather here seems to oscillate between 4 days of rain followed by 4 days of sun, fly fishermen all vie to be the first on a piece of water when the rivers are dropping and clearing after a few days of hard rain.  After watching the weather from our basecamp for a week, we knew that the perfect weather window was coming up, and that if we could make it to our river before anyone else, the fish would be looking up and ready to eat, and we would be there to meet them.

Thus, we found ourselves standing in front of a small blue helicopter on a dry and clearing early Monday morning.  You may have read that one can risk life and limb in NZ in countless ways with almost no concern for legal liability or assumption of risk, and it's true.  After shaking hands with our pilot, Wayne, and stuffing our bags into the cargo space, we each wrote our first name and weight on a small piece of paper.  Wayne pointed out the axe, flashlight, and first aid kit (all of which I can only imagine we might need if we managed to survive a crash landing in the temperate rainforest backcountry), and wrote down our pick up date, time, and location on the back of his hand with a pen.

Five minutes after showing up, we were flying east over the coastal farms, and soon found ourselves blasting over ridge lines into the foggy voids of valleys further inland.  The flight in and out of our destination was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and I really can't explain how fun it was to zoom over the tree tops and skim the rivers on the way in. 

View from the heli pad

The horse we rode in on

Once I get home, I'm planning to make a video of it all, most likely to some sort of CCR or Stevie Ray Vaughn soundtrack.  Call it cliche, but you know that's really the best music to which one can set helicopter footage.

Sky sitting up front

After landing at the confluence of the main river and the tributary we were set to fish, we put our packs on and immediately walked into a hornet's nest.  Just before this trip, my mom had told me to buy some Benadryl for exactly that kind of situation, but I couldn't find any, and luckily it turns out none of us is allergic to bees.

Post bee-stings

We immediately started seeing fish on the way in.  There were 5 right here in the first pool.

For the next 8 hours, we trudged upstream, constantly crossing and re-crossing the high and dropping (perfect!) stream.  We saw lots of fish on the way in, and set up our camp for 3 nights on a grassy gravel bar.  Josh immediately caught a 5.5 and a 6.5 lb brown trout on successive casts next to our tents.  On large dry flies.

Base of operations for 3 nights

 

 

One of the 2 camp fish

The following morning, we woke up to our camp being buzzed by a helicopter filled with competing fishermen.  Unfortunately, they didn't see us and landed on the next pool downstream.  We only managed to get their attention once their heli had taken off again, but as we were there first and in plain sight, they called in another chopper and left us alone (proper etiquette for which they should be commended here).  It seems they ended up with a pretty expensive bill for the day.

Everyone caught some good fish, and I won't bore you with the details except to say that Josh caught his trophy 8 pound brown trout, I got my 6 pounder, and we caught lots of other fish averaging 5 pounds, mostly on large cicada dry flies.

The big hog

 

 

Day trip fishing from our camp

A good fish

My big trout of the trip.  Ate a stonefly nymph and ran upstream through a rapid, which caused much confusion.  Really fun fish to catch.

Last fish on the first day

The peak that stood watch on our camp

This fish eventually got away from Sky

Headed out

After 3 nights on that river, we walked back out to the main river, and spent 2 nights there.  The first night we stayed at one of the new backcountry huts, and were finally relieved to be able to sit in shorts and T-shirst without being eaten alive by sandflies.

Our first hut

The hut 

 

Me looking around before dinner

The next day, we woke up and hiked 10 kilometers upstream to our pick up point, and stayed the night in a small hut there.  Before being picked up the next day, we spent the day fishing the main river and found lots of rising fish to play with before the flight out.

One of the swing bridges on the track

The smaller hut on our last night

 We made it back to our base in Murchison just in time for another dinner with theWinter family and fellow anglers Tom and Elizabeth.  The 10 of us sat down to 6 different pizzas, 3 cookie pizzas with ice cream, and it was great to be around such fun and interesting people.  It's a special place.

The Winter's wallabies

Pizza dinner cooked up by Brent Winter and Elizabeth

We will take the next week to tour the West Coast, hitting places like Franz Joseph glacier, hopefully a couple of small spring creeks, and end up in Wanaka or Queenstown.  Josh and Sky will split for Fiji, Argentina, Hawaii, Austrailia, or Jackson, depending on where the mood hits them in the next week for their flights out on February 4th.  From there, I'll have another 2 months to do... something.

When I do whatever it happens to be, I'll check in here.