GOING FISHING with Kotare

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34130, 17 April 1976, Page 11

GOING FISHING with Kotare

Bleached summer grass on the hills; willow leaves turning gold over the tumbling water: pirouetting fantails dancing flies. And only yards away, cars roaring after hatching stream past on their way home to Sunday tea.

Once or twice I was afraid a fantail would mistake my black nymph for a fly. Fish were certainly being deceived by the imitation. So far, three had sucked in the nymph and then chased all over the water in at-

tempts to get rid of it. As T landed the third, a fantail flew down to a

nearby perch and gravely watched me unhook the little fish and return it to the water.

Perhaps I would catch a big one today? The largest fish I had taken from the stream would have weighed no more than 31b, possibly less, and yet it had forced me to follow it 50yds downstream before I could get it under contiJ.

1 riends had lately- been tai.,ng fish up to 4|lb or so on weighted nymphs fishing upstream. The trout were almost always rainbows, newly arriving from the bigger river some miles away- on their upstream march to spawning reaches. No wonder they fought so well, tearing yards of line from the reel, flinging themselves like cur-

ving silver bars time and again from the water. A few were brown trout because, like so many central North Island streams and rivers, conditions favoured both species equally well.

But on Sunday afternoon, fishing into ah autumnal backdrop, I took only rainbows. Maybe the browns didn’t like the look of the black nymph and politely stepped aside to allow their cousins first go. 1 forged slowly upstream, casting into holes and deep runs, occasionally hooking fish that held, occasionally missing takes altogether. A difficult problem confronts late-afternoon n y m p h-fishermen on streams flowing east. All the light in the sky- is ahead. Inevitably, the

broken surface of the water becomes ninetenths silver, making the detection of linemovements very nearly imnossible most of the time.

I’ve no doubt that I missed a good half dozen takes altogether as the sun sank lower, just because I couldn’t see what was happening. Even the bright orange colour of my inch of plastic

drinking-straw "float” — normally highly visible against greenshaded surfaces —

was impossible to see against the constantlymoving silver reflections. Twice I raised the rod high as the last few feet of line drifted towards me, and found fish on. Both quickly came off agaip. So it’s wise to choose stretches of water that

face away from the east in the morning and away from the west in the. afternoon. Nymph-fishing water set against the high bulk of hills or steep banks, which turn the surface green, very often seems more productive than other waters — and quite likely is, simply because the takes of fish are more certainly and quickly detected.

This is not so academic a subject as it may sound, because any tactic which will help the nymph-fisherman achieve maximum line-visibility will undoubtedly return him additional fish. Upstream nymph-fish-ing stringently tests the angler’s reflexes anyway. I fished probably no more than 150 metres of water on Sunday afternoon, and

yet I must have missed five takes completely because the fish moved so fast. I managed to intercept five slightly slower takes — but just too late in each case.

Some fish take with breath-taking speed. Four times that afternoon my plastic “float” took off upstream. By the time I reacted the fish had gone. 1 still do not know whether it is best, where

possible, to fish more across and up rather than directly up, but I do know that the more directly the angler is in touch with the nymph the more likely he is to hook a taking fish. It is important to strip in line at a speed to match that of the travelling nymph, and to keep the nymph from overtaking the line above. In spite of the importance of maintaining direct contact with the nymph, as a general rule, when rhe angler is fishing up and across it is a good practice to allow the line to belly oown-stream of the rod. If a fish takes, the fisherman then strikes upstream, against the belly in the line. In theory, this increases the chances of

hooking fish bei ause th, nymph is thus pullet more directly downs! rean rather than across. Ihe theory worked i practice three times fo me on Sunday afternoo in the deepest poo! of th four I fished. The three rainbows produced took to the a in utter amazement. Th first ran right across tf pool, jumped, and vet nearly landed high an drv on the other bank. The third crashed o its back so close to m that it showered drops r water on my polaroids. 1 must have caught 1 or 14 fish that afternoon ranging from a fev ounces to 1!. lb. And must have lost a goo, half-dozen. This nymph-fishing is ; great way to take trout.