Trout Season Opening day 2011: Tararuas

After a long cold Wellington winter Jack, Tom and I were itching to get out for a substantial fishing trip into the Tararuas.  Our chosen destination was a small side stream entering the main river in the middle of an impenetrable gorge.  The shear inaccessibility of the stream was what appealed to me as I was sure it would hold some solid trout. 

September 31^st dawned clear and cool so we were off into the hills with our packs and rods in tow.  After a short drive and a slightly longer walk we arrived to the bottom of the gorge where we made camp and rested for our big opening day mission. 

October 1^st and the opening of the trout season dawned clear and windless, ideal conditions.  We had chosen our path into the side stream by climbing a ridge at the base of the gorge for a couple of kilometres and then dropping down a spur into the stream.  Three hours of bush bashing after leaving camp we finally caught our first glimpse of the creek and instantly from the hillside spotted a nice fish feeding in the tail of the first pool.  We all stumbled out onto the riverbed and I assembled my rod attaching a green humpy with a pheasant tail dropper, Tom and Jack waited on the other side of the river while I snuck in closer for the cast. 

First cast, although a little sloppy, the fish darted across the current and took the nymph, I let out a whoop and after a short fight netted a well-conditioned 2kg brown.  A quick fish on the board is always nice, this time being no exception, at least the massive walk was not in vain.  Our attention now turned to moving upstream and we quickly realised the rough going was about to get either rougher or wetter. 

Perhaps 30m up stream and we were gorged, despite the streams small size further progress meant either a swim or a climb high on the hill around a bluff.  Being early spring and not yet tropical we opted for the climb and an hour later were once again stumbling out onto the creek bed to be met by a beautiful pool and a feeding trout.  This time I removed the nymph as the fish was holding in fairly shallow water, a quick cast and once again the fish was hooked.  I handed the rod to jack who fought it to the Net and another 2kg brown was photographed and released.  

Thankfully this time upstream progression looked a little easier and we moved on upstream relatively unhindered.  After catching a few more fish, many of which were poorly conditioned we came to our final pool which contained three feeding fish.  The first cast was a bit sloppy and the back fish rocketed upstream causing the other two to disappear from sight as well.  I let the boys know the day was over and began to wind in when I felt a surge on the line and a strong fish took off upstream with my fly in its mouth.  Once again I handed the rod to Jack and he wound in a somewhat skinny looking trout.  

By this stage it was about 3pm and still a 3-4 hour walk back to camp so we quickly scoffed a few tins of tuna with some crackers and we were off. 

October 2^nd we awoke late to find the day windy and showery yet still decided to head out for a few hours of fishing in the main stem before breakfast and the walk home.  We saw a good number of fish, but with a strong head wind a good presentation was hard to come by.  Nevertheless we eventually found a sheltered spot and scored a nice fish to cap off a good opening day trip.  

By 3pm we were back at the car and heading home to Wellington to make some devious plans for our next trip. All up the fishing was nothing to rave about but we got to explore new territory and saw some of New Zealand’s wild bush at its best, so really the fishing was just a bonus.