Avoiding critical (fatal) wave at Rakaia

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33047, 14 October 1972, Page 18

Avoiding critical (fatal) wave at Rakaia

(Contributed by P.L.M.) In this article an attempt is made to evaluate the wave that not only places fishermen in jeopardy but sometimes sweeps them away.

It will be suggested that there is always a critical period in every tide when the element of potential danger reaches a peak, and that if the distinctive symptoms of this period can be recognised as they develop and acted upon the incidence of drowning accidents at the mouth of the Rakaia River could well recede and might drop away altogether.

It is believed that the views expressed apply as

much to the whitebaiter as to the trout and salmon fisherman, to those who fish for kahawai in the surf and to anybody who fishes in or near the mouth. It is acknowledged that the principles involved are understood and observed by those who know the mouth well and fish it regularly. It is seldom that they find themselves in serious difficulty. This article is addressed primarily to visitors for the day who are strangers to the mouth, to young anglers and to those who have only fished the Rakaia for a comparatively short time. It is prompted at this time by the fact that the mouth was until recently directly opposite the main road. If it should remain there it is confidently expected that many more people will be fishing there this year for both trout and salmon than in previous years when a somewhat tedious trip by boat was necessary to get to the water.

Unstable mouth The Rakaia mouth is never static but is in a continuous state of flux, forming and reforming and changing its position and shape as it yields to the vast pressures to which it is subjected by battering seas driven before sou’west winds in winter, and the big snow floods in spring and summer that are released by the nori wester. When the tide is out the river is in complete command. It pours relentlessly out to sea in a silent torrent of heavy fast water that nothing can withstand. The dramatic strength and speed of its passage provides its own warning and few will venture closer than a few feet from the edge when these conditions obtain. The respect it commands is seen from the fact that no-one wades in to fish in such a current. In these conditions fishing is done from the shore, or if there is a piece of slack water in a bay, from there.

Strong undertow At high tide however, the situation is reversed. For a short time the sea comes in and assumes control over the river. It presents a fearful prospect. None who have experienced it fail to appreciate the significance of the thundrous waves as they advance towards the shingle bank, break then disintegrate and rush back, forming a powerful undertow. Contemporaneously, chopping seas are struggling up the mouth in their battle for supremacy over the waters of the river. It is impossible to fish in this, the water has no meaning and usually there is too much floating driftwood about to make casting worth while. At either extremity of the tide the danger signals for the fisherman are so patently obvious that they require no further warning apart from the spectacle they present. Fishermen do not enter this kind of water or at any rate if they do they keep well away from the effects described. The exercise of a little common sense is all that one requires if one proposes to fish again the following season.

Danger period In the view of the writer the real danger is much more insidious in nature. From about half-tide onwards a change, that is quite subtle at first, begins to take place, heralding the time when the sea is about to assume its control over the river. Unless the fisherman appreciates this and acts upon it he may well be caught in what I term the “critical” wave. An hour or so before this process begins he may have taken up his position in a

perfectly sensible and safe place. During this time, if he at all resembles the writer, he will not have caught anything but will have gradually drifted into an abstract state of mind engendered by the monotony of continuous casting. His mental processes will have become dulled. Disgruntled he will disengage the ticer of the person on the other side of the mouth and throw it back in the water. He will contemplate the real injustice released into the atmosphere as salmon are caught by others whilst he has not even had a touch. He queries whether in fact he did eat that last sandwich.

Growing surges Musings of such a nature meander through the mind of a fisherman who has been at it for hours without much doing. It is not surprising if he fails to notice a slight lift in the water round his waders, followed a few minutes later by another slightly larger surge. If he has so failed, he has missed the first tangible sign that the position he is fishing will soon become untenable. Not only will these surges continue but they will increase in size and weight and speed at irregular intervals. The sea has started to come in. If the fisherman has not read the signs and moved further back a wave larger perhaps than those preceding it and faster, about waist height, may be enough to dislodge him. It is too big to lean against, too high to keep out of the waders, too fast to withstand. There is no purchase against such a wave. It may come from the rear, but usually from one’s left and in a spiral arc. For the man on the Ashburton side it comes from behind, or from his right.

This wave is just a little larger than the ones he has been fishing in. Usually it will not have broken, disintegrating into foam, but will come as a ridged wall of water, curling towards him just high enough and fast enough to dislodge him. If it does, he is gone —- for him it was the critical wave.

Anticipation essential It would be idle to pretend that this is the only dangerous situation that can occur at the mouth. Obviously other dangerous situations can and do present themselves but, in the opinion of the writer, for the most part these are self-evident that the exercise of ordinary common sense is sufficient to prevail. The danger of the critical wave is that it can be the least apparent. It glides up silently and swiftly, and unless one is prepared for it, loss of foothold, with consequent precipitation into the infemo of the incoming tide, is inevitable. The counter to it is simplicity itself — one has to move back and fish from safer ground before it comes. There is always plenty of Warning to enable this to be done as the making of the tide is a gradual process and can be perceived long before the waves which comprise it assume critical proportions. The Rakaia mouth is and always has been a dramatic and exciting place to fish. Fishing there can be as safe as anywhere else provided the development of the incoming tide is observed and the fisherman immediately withdraws to a point from which he can safely cast. The so called critical wave and those that follow it will thus be in front of him and will have spent their substance before they reach him.