When you have a mind to explore, you can’t avoid getting in to jams. Boy, did we get it yesterday. There has been a spring creek that we wanted to get to for a couple of years, not taking the time until recently. We did it for a 1/2 day last week but really wanted to check more of it out. Trouble is, it spills into another stream through a quagmire of a forest/swamp in a large lowland area. Our friend Mitch was with us, and he was as hip for the exploration as we were, so we made plans based on scratchy, old sat photos on Google Earth. We knocked on the door of the land owner and she greeted us with welcome. No trouble at all. We then told her we wanted to do a little more exploring than the standard walk about the property. She looked at us wide eyed, smiled, recomposed herself and stuttered “Do you know where you’re going?” I replied “Well, we have it on Google Earth and have a pretty good idea, but not exactly. We really just want to give it a go.”
Now, if there`s one thing that we`ve learned here, it`s that land owners know their property well. We`ve mentioned that to everyone we know. It`s not as if they and their families haven`t owned the land the past 150 years. When she looked at us wide eyed, smiled, and questioned us, it might have been a clue. But, hell, we`re always up for an adventure.
We drove off and on our merry way. We stopped to check Google one more time, and I kept my laptop open on my lap as I tried to navigate where we were supposed to park, to begin the bush bash to the stream, to walk it up to the mouth of the spring creek, to walk it back to Mitch`s car. Still sounds simple enough, right? And that’s what we did. We hopped out and down into the ponga fern, flax lawyers bush, blackberry, supplejack, beech, “forest”. And so it began. I told the others that if I parked where I thought we did, it would be 250 – 300m to our stream. As the crown flies. There are no crows in New Zealand. I should have said as the fantails fly... which are small birds that fly erratically left and right, up and down, never still for but seconds. Because that’s how we were forced to walk through the jungle, as supplejack engulfed us. Supplejack is Tarzan like vine that braids and winds around itself, stronger than rope. It hangs from larger trees. Once you get out of it, into clearings – as Mitch said “it looks like it opens up over there” – then the lawyers bush and blackberries and other velcro like vines take over. Lawyers bush is aptly named as it grows everywhere and is full of pricks, huge teeth like spikes. Then we got into thigh deep mud, hit a cliff of mud or two, got entangled in the vines some more, tangled our nether regions in the spiked vines... you get the picture. For 40 minutes we went. And you know what? It opened up to the exact gravel bar that we hoped to hit as sighted on Google Earth. The only pre planned victory of the day, mind you, but an important one.
We began our way upstream. Mitch missed a fish as AJ & I watched the fish teethe on the nymph as it swam 4 feet in a circle. We’d assumed he saw his dry fly go down, but he was blind. So, as the video shows, the fish teethed on it and spat it out about when AJ & I had a short conversation about the fish and Mitch garnered he should set the hook. The fish had turned down to face him, and you literally can see it chewing on the nymph. As it chewed, Mitch set the hook and pulled it straight out of its mouth. From there, the fish were fare more spooky than you’d think for this location. Most spooked as soon as the leader and tippet drew near, before touching the water. Interesting. And increasingly futile. But, we moved on, landing a couple on the dry anyway.
We got up to where the spring creek spills into the stream we were on. Success. The pool at the confluence was amazing, with some good fish rising. Trouble is the pool was 10 feet deep with sharp drop offs, with no end in sight as it meandered upstream to disappear behind the bush. The pool was lined with BUSH and FLAX. It kind of looked like your crazy aunt’s overgrown front living room. You know the one. It smells earthy. She smells earthy. Giant spider plants and spikey plants and vines grow around and through each other, up the walls, through the speaker mesh, into the back of the tv. You know there’s a tarantula and a couple of howler monkeys back in the corner somewhere but you don’t stay there long enough to find out. Well, that’s the kind of bush we were looking at. That was our route. We actually had to find our way 4 feet up the bank to get going. Up to the flax swamp. Above our creek was swamp. Now, flax in N America conjures a completely different mind’s eye. Here it’s about 9 or 10 feet tall, solid, with edges like razors. And bushy as hell with vines growing in between and wrapped about. And so began the next hour. One step I was tangled in vines, the next I was bulling through matted flax. The next 3 or 4 I sank to my crotch in soupy mud and slop. I found it encouraging that the two following me continued to offer to follow and choose slightly different routes at each of these barriers. I got back next to the creek to find it hadn’t changed much. Still deep, still swampy, bush lined, impossible to fish. And then we found the back channel swamp that we had to walk around. And more of the same for the next 1/2 hour. Sweet. As I sank into the mud at one crossing, I noticed my tri-pod had become a bi-pod. I tried to double back to look for the missing leg, but in 7 steps I found that I had to use my voice just to reconnect to where AJ & Mitch were. Likely not a good choice to try to re-trace my steps, especially since I couldn’t find signs that 3 people had just been there.
About that time I kept chirping out the land owner’s question... “You sure you know where you’re going?” and my reply... “We’re Canadian, we have Google Earth...” It was great humor the first 30 or times I might have mentioned it aloud.
We hit yet another trough of belly button soup to cross. I only know its depth as I decided it was my place to take a stand. I hopped in, sank, kept going, mushing through to the other side through water cress and swamp ooze. Amelia looked on in horror as I reached the other side, knowing she had to come, as it looked like I might have found the exit. I came out of the ooze, looking like a muddied, sullied hippopotamus, groaning and thrashing to clamber out of its treacherous grasp, pulling my body forward. I stood up on the other side and looked back at her. Marriage sure tries the gal from time to time. And life offered me an olive branch. 3 feet to the right of the route I had taken, a log laid across the trough, providing my princess a route. She only had to waltz knee deep in the clean water. “thanks for that”, was all I was offered. So ended the hour in the swamp.
We got out to the spring creek, which now had banks and current even. AJ & I thought it smaller than it was upstream a week earlier. It was deep though, and the rain of last week had raised levels, so maybe it was simply lower. Right away we came onto a 6 pound trout that she missed with a nymph. And then another 6 pound trout sidled up beside us. I cast to a 5.5 pound trout and it refused my nymph. Mitch got his 4.75 – 5 pound trout. We moved upstream and there were 5 to 7 pound browns lining the banks every 50 m. And there were recent tracks in the grass, pounding down casting platforms in the grass to every single one of them. We’d been beaten to the punch a day earlier. We kept moving up, the fish kept not really spooking until we forced them to with an errant cast or miss step on the bank. They weren’t feeding but didn’t seem much to care we were there either. It was kind of odd.
It became obvious we were on the wrong spring creek as it began to widen and get shallow. In the old, scratchy sat photos of Google Earth, we’d missed this one. But a little surprise waited for us. The creek came alive with huge trout, feeding on God knows what. As I began to cast to the first trout, the cows in the field next to us came to have a look at what we were doing. A few stood in the creek 15 feet beside us. The trout – 1/2 dozen of them – kept feeding. These were all 6 to 9 pound browns. The cows trampled the bank as I made my way to cast. The fish didn’t care. My first cast did not land and the biggest fish that I was supposed to be casting to spooked. It left the bloody pool before my 17 foot, 5x leader and #16 elk hair hit the water. As Mitch stated, “So, 40 cows can trample the banks but you can’t put a fly 4 feet up and a foot over?” We kept trying for these fish but each one did the exact same. You couldn’t get a cast to their left or right or above without them spooking. And they were rising but none of us could see what to. It was awesome to watch. It was likely an emerging midge in the #28 to 32 range they were taking, but there weren’t many. Maybe it was some kind of grub, but they wouldn’t take the ones I had. For the first time in 4 trips to NZ, we were finally stumped. And that’s how that ended. We walked a little further up, saw a few more fish, then the creek went into a jungle of lawyer bush and black berry bushes. We had a good idea of where on the map we were by that time so we doubled back, hit the fence line, and found our way to the road to where we were supposed to go. It took 15 min and we were back on the spring creek we were originally supposed to follow. We had some fun on it and as the rain front moved in, hit Mitch’s car and headed to town for a cabin. The rain set in, last night dumping 150mm and we’re getting the 200mm more today.
Curiously, we opened Google Earth when we got back. Right at the junction of the spring creek and the first stream we came to, we saw the error. Previously, we hadn’t seen the smaller stream that we wound up following. The intended spring creek did a huge, sweeping corner and came in to the same pool from the north, and the unknown creek came into it from the south. On the old sat images on Google, it’s really hard to see. 3 creeks all come together right there. Because of the jungle, swamp, and flax marsh, we couldn’t see anything and got on the wrong water. But it’s a great thing we did, because once this foot of rain clears up, we might have another go at those trout, likely coming from upstream and drifting flies down to them.
All in all, with a decent number of fish worked, hooked and several landed, it was a good day. The discovery of the fish we found on an incredible “where are we?” was great. And seeing the ease of access to this new piece of water on Google Earth is even better. So, a little exploration and self sacrifice, and some great trout to visit one or two more times the coming 8 weeks we’re here.
Above - taking a look at where we planned / hoped to go
Below - things started off fairly well
Above - the gate of hell - the entry to our misery
Below - Where one plant didn't fill space another was happy too.
Above - flax swamp fun
Below - Mitch gets a nice fish once we find the stream
Above - Dave looking for trout under the banks
Below - you really need to expand this shot to the full size to get to see what's happening. 40 cows trampling the banks coming to watch Mitch fish. One cast anywhere near the fish and it spooks, you can see its massive wake just downstream of him as he watches it go past. No worries mate, I couldn't get them either!
