Moments in Time and Friends

We discovered that special place during the preparation for our first trip to NZ SI five years ago. Karamea Lodge, a very decent (which is rather an understatement), perfectly located in Karamea, the gateway to several large river systems in the distant north west of NZ SI. Best of all the offered accommodation was absolutely fair priced. We were amazed by the lodge and the friendly owners. Two years ago (as far as I remember we did not go towards Karamea during our second trip) we went back to the lodge for a couple of days for Ines with Tobias exploring the nature around Karamea while I was fishing at a river in the bush and for me as the day after coming out of the bush. The owners were so exceptionally guest oriented that they reserved the whole lodge for us – unbelievable!

Before I continue with that 'too good to be true' story: the lodge was closed due to personal reasons by the owners’ just weeks after we were there early 2013. Sad for many many satisfied guests.

Back to the current trip and me returning from the bush: flying over the lodge I saw several cars there, thus there must be somebody at home. Unloading my stuff from the chopper at Karamea 'airport', paying the bill, a quick side trip to the beach and the ocean, where three locals fished with their Kontiki longline fishing device, catching several red snapper.

After the beach I passed the the former accommodation and appreciated restaurant Riverstone, I learned that this venue was closed as well... (later I was told that a divorce was the reason for that sad situation. The homepage is still up but as of 01/2015 the location is closed, check if you are interested)

The welcome by Jenny and Mark, the owners of the former lodge, was exceptionally warm and friendly. It felt like home from home! I was immediately invited to take seat between a bunch of family and friends. And the best of all – if everything works out, they might visit Bavaria in the not so distant future!

A similar situation of friendship turned up some days later in Queenstown with guide Bruce and again in Te Anau – those are the very special moments you only experience when you travel destinations several times. Traveling this way,  you come to places that developed a meaning to you, not just tourists’ attractions and points of interest but real connection to a place, a landscape, the people and ultimately friends living there, locations and memories that cause highly intense emotions. 

After four trips many places in New Zealand SI hold such a special meaning for me.

Too bad that I had to deny the friendly offer to stay for the night as I was on the road towards some flowing water further south that called… would have loved to stay but with just four weeks you should better have an eye on the outlined rough route.

Reefton was the destination of that afternoon. Ending up there in a Motel, but to my delight the favored Tilly’s Place crib / bach / holiday home would be vacant from Sunday onwards for two nights. Saturday found me driving via Springs Junction to one of the rivers around Lewis Pass. Millions of cars drove towards me as it was the first day of the holiday season. Every second car with a boat or other device behind its hitch. 

At the trail head to the river, I packed my gear and started to walk in. Right in that moment a guy jumped out of a motor-home parked at the main road and announced that they “wanted” to fish that river as well. Did they? No they were parking and having a late breakfast. I offered them to give them a day of fishing from the mouth upwards and I would walk further as intended upstream. A burden for me as my left food reminded me every single step. Anyhow, the day was rather windy and overcast. At the first significant pool where the track comes close to the river I immediately spotted a very good fish but resisted the temptation to fish for it. As I said I would walk further upstream. Fish were few. Only in the obvious pools I could spot a couple, mostly one brown in the tail and two rainbows further up the pool. In one good pool at the end of a short gorge I spooked them all by bad and lazy habits and bad casting in the wind funneling through the tight valley. Several pools and some fish later I finally landed a nice and strong 7lbs rainbow, another one was lost. Not much for that day, but at least not blank. The motor-home was long gone as I arrived. Might have been some bloody European fishing tourists ; )

PS: I was wondering about the tramped grass on that particular river while tramping and fishing up. Later somebody told me the reason for that: a trophy was caught there recently and thus everybody went there. If I would have known that... Do not tell anybody not trustworthy where you catch big fish! BTW I caught my trophy in the river XXXXX!

Late on the way back towards Reefton I was lucky to make arrangements for two nights at the mentioned place. Strange feeling to be back in a holiday home after 1 ¾ years. Sunday, sleep in, a couple of useless kilometers, less than two hours on a river close by (lots of stones were in the riverbed) the way back to the car was mega bush bashing to get through a distance of just 50 meters. A machete would have been handy or better a rotary cuter to open a tunnel in the dense new plantation scrub, black berry and stuff. If you get lost in such a piece of vegetation - nightmare … better not to think about it.

But I had some promising plans for Monday I was looking forward for: a challenging but frequently rewarding river. Sunday was tying some special flies, cooking dinner or going to a local restaurant / pub, think I went to a restaurant that night, relaxing, taking care of the washing, writing …

Backcountry Christmas

As two years ago the packing for the chopper flight had to be done pretty quickly. I was lucky that I did not miss any substantial items. Except that I should have taken the pack of toilet paper I had in my hand but did not throw on the pile, thinking that there would be plenty at the hut as experienced before. It turned out that there was nothing at all. So I had to use a workaround in terms of some 50NZ$ bills I packed. Lucky I had some. No just kidding, kitchen paper was the bail out. It worked fine.

Flying solo is a plus as there are no weight restrictions. Lots of stuff - good for three people was loaded to the R44.

The sky was grey and the clouds where very low, thus only a pilot knowing the terrain very well was able to fly the direct line. Wayne knew exactly where to fly so the sneak through over the ridge with close to zero visibility for some meters was perfectly mastered and down we dropped to the river valley and towards the hut.

A big cyclone has hit the slopes around Karamea around Easter, deforesting large areas. All trees on some slopes lay flat on the ground, several houses must have been damaged by that extreme storm.

First evening at the hut. I had it all for myself. Love that calm. Dinner: appetizer, filet, rice, salad, yoghurt with some cold beers with candles lightening the room in a warm light. Reading at candle light. Nice evening. Unfortunately it was much too warm to lighten the fire.

Candle light, that is the word, if you travel to a hut take three things in particular: a pack of long burning candles, toilet paper and insect spray to get rid of the sandflies in case there are too many in the hut (cover food before you spray and then leave the room for some time). And for the joy of the next guest: leave all three left overs at the hut.

 

First day at the system I decided to fish branch A due to the rather high main rivers, which made crossing the confluence section impossible (ABC refers to the three branches according to the old blog post nomenclature two years ago). Out of that reason I had to grass-bash through blossoming grass as tall as I am – hello hay fever... that was the maximum dose possible that day. Every single grass bush exploded to a yellowish cloud of poles. Same did my nose and eyes: they just exploded. 

In one of the early pools I caught an active feeding fish and unfortunately ripped it off. But after a couple of minutes it was back on station and was feeding again. I set up another nymph and caught it again! This time it saw the net and I could remove both flies. Did somebody say NZ fish are supposed to be spooky?

I fished well beyond a gorgy section and beyond smaller forks following the main right arm. Very low numbers of fish even in the highly promising pools only one or none… That was rather disappointing compared to the last visit, back then there were considerable more fish not to say many.

 

In total I caught some 4 fish of around 5 to 6,5 lbs. All browns, all on nymph, all in good shape but not sign of mice at all. Such a low result that I tend to count the double hooked fish twice.

Back at the hut I was surprised to see it full: an elderly tramping couple and a group of four young men on special vehicles, obviously not used to sports as they were all sleeping in their beds – it was just around 8 pm. I felt a little bit unfair to fry my filet second round and having a couple of beers. That night a lot of wood was sawn… by the snoring sleepers.

Next day was the turn of branch B. The whole thing was a little bit limited in terms of fun as my left Simms wading boot for some reason caused awful pain with every single step on the upper inner ankle. No explanation for that never had it before. Now I understood a picture I saw once before of totally intentionally cut Simms boots. I was close to consider the same. After some days I just ended up to tie only the lower part of the lace and keep the upper section open. That made me looking very stylish! It might be the fish did not like that.

Fishing was tough. Very low numbers of fish and low numbers of eels. Lots of walking up until the bush and well into the bush up to a big pool that was the point of return two years ago. Back then there were close to half a dozen fish feeding in that pool. This time I saw three not feeding. Water was clear and dropping, a recent spate had added fresh water, spotting was good, thus perfect conditions. I had no explanation for the low numbers of fish. Catching three fish the whole day. Nevertheless the fish were in very good condition around 5,5 to 7lbs, but no sign of mice died, as the area was heavily covered by 1080 just weeks before.

At night I came back to the hut rather late. And to my surprise it was busy again: this time with two Germans, one relocated a decade ago to NZ, who had a fishing rod and funny nymphs with him. The other one was his tramping buddy. We chatted for a while. I had NZ sausages that night – not too bad at all. 

Next morning we made arrangements to share the fishing. I went to C branch and the two others to another section. I walked for an hour strait on the track to cover previously unknown water later that day. The whole day was starting very slow in terms of fishing. I hooked a first fish close to the bridge that was pulling me through two pools downriver. Strange it did not come to my mind that it might be foul hooked. Exactly that was the case. Landing it, the fly was hooked on the back fin, so this fish did not count. Close to that section I caught one soon afterwards that was regularly hooked. At least that one was a real beauty of something close or around to 6,5-7lbs (think I mentioned before: I am unable to memorize more than three fish a day by weight and details, and after some days most of that is blurred as well). To make a long story short: it was the single one fish of the day. I followed the river a little bit more upstream than before and was happy about the track leading back to the hut. What a strange day celebrating Christmas. It was the 24^th of December. At the hut Tortellini and some red wine I shared with the two folks from Germany. The only reminder of Christmas was unpacking a very generous present from my parents and my thoughts of the usual joyful celebration at home.

No fly out on the First Christmas Holiday or Christmas NZ-style (they celebrate on the 25^th) – thus I had to spend another day on that system. Branch A saw me again. Not so far up this time just below the gorge. More kind of taking pictures as there was not much action in terms of fish walking upstream. Even the always good lower pools and a specific section did not show sign of fish! I ended up blank! It happens, but not often.

On the way back to the hut I had some casts to educated fish on a pool of the main river. After a while I gave up and layed down on the bank. Not much sandflies thus a quick snooze was an inviting option. After a longer while I got back to consciousness and got upright and to my surprise – first thought was “it is a dream?!” – there was a fisherman coming up at the bank. An elephant would have surprised me slightly less. It turned out that this time it was a Swiss tramping couple,  he casting an evening line and she around the hut.

To my surprise he did not ask me thousands of questions about NZ fishing and the local river system but about where I have been traveling the years before. Being in NZ I would use every slight chance to gain more on site information about fishing before I would ask somebody about his international travel experiences. His high visibility orange fly line, the experience the days before and some other experiences made me silently thinking: folks if you travel to NZ to fly fish then DO your bloody homework. Read books, internet, collect information on fishing, do your preparation thoroughly and behave accordingly! It just improves your chances to catch the odd fish massively.

Nevertheless the conversation that night was nice and I shared the next bottle of wine with my “guests”, this time it was a rather young but still pleasant Cabernet/Merlot from The Mission / Napier. In Napier Tobias made his very first steps three days after his first birthday. Back then he was so unbelievable proud and excited about what he just achieved.

10:30 the next morning – it was Friday the 26^th December – the chopper flew me out to Karamea. Farewell River – take care and get the fish back!

On the way out I made an aerial shot of a house close to the water, a house where I wanted to say hello to the residents after being back out of the bush…