Exploring the Tararua's for Trout

This is the story of the first trip Ed and I ever spent in the Tararua’s during last season.  We spent an overnight trip in an awesome river fishing our way upstream as we discovered all new water.

After a short drive from Wellington we arrived at our destination to find a beautiful pool below the car park which we both thought was perfect trout habitat.  Filled with energy from the good looking water I shouldered my pack and followed Ed down the track.  Three hours later we came to the point where we had planned to get into the river bed, the river didn’t have any good holding water so once again we walked a few hundred meters up to the first pool and bush bashed our way down to the riverbed.  Slowly we crept up the pool until in what looked like relatively insignificant water Ed spotted a nice trout nymphing steadily about 10m up.  So Ed set up his rod with a size #14 parachute adams and snuck up to his chosen casting spot which was obscured from my view.  After what seemed like eternity I saw the trout rise to Ed’s fly and him stumbling back downstream with a significant bend in his rod.  After a short fight Ed brought a nice 1.5kg brown to the net.

We moved upstream to the next pool where almost straight away Ed sighted another nice fish nymphing mid-stream about 15 meters upstream of us.  This time I went up with Ed and stood next to him as he cast to the unsuspecting fish which rose without thinking twice and sucked Ed’s dry under.  Ed struck and the trout rocketed upstream as he handed the rod to my shaking hands and after a short but close battle Ed netted my first back country trout.

The day carried on in that way with a trout in most likely pools until late in the day;

 by 4pm we hadn’t seen a trout for about an hour when we came to an unlikely looking run.  About halfway up the run on the opposite bank Ed spotted what looked like a small fish nymphing mid water.  He tied on a small pheasant tail nymph and made the short cast up to the fish and as we had watched many times that day the trout drifted to the side and engulfed the nymph.  Ed raised the rod and there was a solid weight on the end.  As he handed the rod to me the fish turned and sped downstream in the current, under Ed’s instruction I side strained the fish out of the current.  The fish turned and swam steadily upstream pulling line from the reel.  It continued like this for about ten minutes by which time the fish had weakened considerably and Ed easily netted the trout which weighed 3kg, the best for the trip.

Again we trudged up the river sighting no more fish. When we got to the hut we relaxed over our steak dinner and rested for our walk home the next day.  On our way out we saw a few fish but failed to catch any.  All in all it was one of my most memorable trips being the one which set off my obsession with fly fishing that will most likely last a lifetime.