The wee
stream was a classic spring creek. The sky was covered in clouds and there was
some medium wind from NW. So visibility was not so good and fish numbers more
on the low side. But I saw some, spooked some and after a while I caught a nice
one. Caught it on a black small nymph tied by myself in the rush of preparation
back home. This type of fly already caught a bunch of fish here. The fish that
came to the net this evening was 3,75lbs. I lost another one of the same
size. The fish did not seem to be really active, except the one I caught was
nymphing in water around 5feet deep.
Back at the
lodge we started to do the regular dinner procedure: setting up the camp
kitchen and cooking. But this evening was special, as we had real high cuisine
junk food: angus beef burger! They tasted terrific and where prepared more
European style and not Kiwi style, as they use beetroot, which is a little bit
hard to get used to.
That evening we had a strange visit right on our doorstep/kitchen from a bunch of pigs! They were lucky, as my knife was not in reach.
That evening we had a strange visit right on our doorstep/kitchen from a bunch of pigs! They were lucky, as my knife was not in reach.
Next day
saw no NW but southerly winds of medium strength and slightly less
clouds. But before the drive to the stream we had to move. We wanted to have
some lake view this night as the stars light reflects so nicely in the lake (just kidding). Lazy as we
are we went for a ground level room of the South Temple Wing. The room
definitely had seen its best days around 30 years back. But ok it was large, clean and
easy to reach. That was the situation I left Ines heading off to the river.
On the stream: strong southerly winds, dust in the air from the
sandy beaches of the main river, some clouds. Spotting conditions were ok.
Walking all the way down to the mouth was a nice walk but waste of time as
there was nothing in the last kilometer before the streams mouth. After
searching back up, I started to see fish, spook fish and finally catching fish.
I caught two between something of 3,5 and 4,5lbs. As I am bad on counting fish – most
of the Kiwi guides are very good on that – I started to set GPS-points with the
weight of the fishes caught. If you might ask Scotty the Trout Murray from Murchison
on that particular day early 2010, he will not only memorize the weight of
every single fish we caught, but even the flies used and the depth of the indicator
setting (in case of booking please mention my name and mail me!). But that day was really for the record book. With two fish beyond that
magic mark – flyheads know what I mean.
Back to the
stream - I think I spooked three or more good to catch fish by setting up the
cam on the tripod, in the time everything was set, the fish were gone. Ok, two
nice fish, nice day - lets go. Hmm I was not totally satisfied. Back at the car
I thought about fishing a few meters of the piece of water I already touched
yesterday. I came to a promising deep pool. Set up a Nymph and a (split) shot
and gave it a shot. And after some casts a strong fighting rainbow came to the
net at 6,5lbs. Wow – interesting how one single fish can really change the mood
and the evaluation of one day. Now it was a real satisfying day on the stream
and I was leaving the stream around four and racing back to Ines, not like Ken
Block but kind of.
Arriving at the lodge, I was wondering about the luggage in our room and was knocking on the glass door. No Ines, instead she called me from the first level! She decided to overcome laziness and to carry our stuff up to the room. I knew that room before – it was her initial decision to choose ground level. ; ) The revised decision was a very wise one. The first floor rooms are really nice, newly renovate, nicely furnished and fully deserve the term ‘lodge’. So traveler: Lake Ohau Lodge, book a room in the Upper South Temple Wing and try to get one closes to the lake and say hello to Louise from us. A real neat lodge with some kind of Scottish charm on a good value for money. Definitely a good place to spend one or two nights, exactly the right bit of the beaten path, only a detour of 30 Minutes.
Side note:
by the time of writing up to now, my favorite wine this time is ‘Wild Earth - Pinot
Noir 2009’ we just bought today at the winery close to Cromwell. More on that
visit later on. I am just having the last sips of the bottle.
Back to the room selection topic. Ines enjoyed with Tobias the day doing a little walk in the nature and letting Tobias discover the new room with soft carpet. After that nice upstairs surprise we went together to the lounge to have some beer and coffee. With us in the Lodge was a group of young people traveling around. There were two young ladies who had big fun to hold and Tobias in the arms. We should start to charge 3 NZ$ for every minute holding him and 10 NZ$ for a picture with him. Later that evening we had to set up our stove on the first floor veranda. No problem, we are used to stealth cooking. We had some nice dinner and went to bed.
As mentioned before we went to the Lodge due to the announced rain. An guess what - did it rain? No it did not. But the nights in a real bead where good.
Little
Tobias in the meantime discovered that there is no real reason to go to bed
around seven. And Ines could not really persuade him, and I am a bad example
staying up late most of the time. So by now he goes to bed around nine.
The next
morning we were about to leave Lake Ohau and drove straight to the renowned and
thousand times cited Ahuriri River which had a perfect flow of around 20 cumics…