Traffic Cop

It's almost imperative to have a traffic cop on New Zealand rivers. This day, I gave up quite a bit of fishing time to be the eye in the sky for Amelia and our friend Serge, whom we fished with a few days earlier in our trip. I spent the day high above the river spotting from about 80 feet up, where the terrace of the box canyon leveled somewhat. I'm lucky to have 20/5 vision and was able to apply it for the two fishing. Spotting trout is one thing, but spotting them in water that is full of glare or is folding from the fisherman's perspective is another altogether. Sure, from the bird's eye view it might be painfully obvious to me, but one has to keep calm when trying to communicate that information to the one fishing. "See it under that fold by that rock", only cuts it if there is but one rock and one seam line. And sometimes you have to yell at the top of your lungs over the roar of water for them to hear you, and patiently wait for them to stop talking so you can talk and have them hear you. It's a game of patience, a game of timing. If everyone's on the same page, it can go extremely well, as it did for us that day. We didn't see any fish spook, and worked pretty much everything we saw to the point of a take from each fish. Splendid!