Amelia's Best NZ Fight

By reading the title, you might think this post will provide you with some juicy details of a crazy cat fight I had with a possum killing NZ kiwi chick (these types of women are more common than you think!) , but I might as well let you know from the outset, it was a healthy brown trout that kicked my ass.

We were fishing a stream that in high water would intimidate a giant, let alone 2 small Canadian kids from Red Deer, AB, but that day the water was easily wadable and in prime condition. The thing about many streams on the West Coast of the South Island is that they have steep gradients and sometimes this can mean that there are endless fast runs and in some cases runs with very little slack water for landing fish. We had set out to walk as far as our legs would take us that day and we had a particular pool in mind that we were really looking forward to fishing. This pool is now referred to as the "Oh Shit" pool and for good reason. That should tell you everything you need to know as to what happened. It was Dave's turn first and the first brown we spotted rising he hooked, but before long this trout ran downstream straight for a log jam in fast water and despite Dave's best efforts to land him, he got off. It was my turn after and the particular brown I wanted was on a feeding cycle. I remained patient and waited for the right time when it was well within a good casting distance and I hooked up. The next few minutes of my life were intense. After 2 laps of the pool the fish tore downstream at mock speed and I was well into my backing within seconds. Running on big basketball sized rocks to try to keep up and reeling as fast as I could at the same time was highly entertaining (more for Dave than me of course :). There was numerous times when I had finally reeled in all the backing and had caught up to the fly line and  I thought for sure the fish had gotten off, only to realize that it was still swimming downstream in fast current. The crappy part is that just as I was beyond exhausted from the whole ordeal and I thought I had him cornered in enough slack water to put the net to him, he kicked and my fly popped out. That was it....Bugger !! Dave had followed me downstream with the video in hand and between the two of us we figured I had fought this fish over the distance of 2 football fields....needless to say, it was a long, long way. Trying to turn the head of a big male brown in fast moving water on 4X tippet takes some doing. It will be a long time before I ever forget that fight.