ANGLER STRIKES HIS LUCKY DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 4 January 1930, Page 6

ANGLER STRIKES HIS LUCKY DAY.

UPPER KAKAHU SHOWS SOME SPLENDID SPORT. By- IROX BLUE. Perhaps twice in the course oi a fishing season, or possibly three times it you happen to have been born lucky, there will be a day when all goes well, and yesterday chanced to be one of these glad occasions, in spite of expert advice that all the rivers were far too high in fresh, and that all hands would far better employed in some drastic exercise like weeding the special flower beds of Belinda May, or doing some other useful act which is -naturally unpleasant. It was Belinda May herself who gave the expert advice, and mentioned herbaceous borders, but at least in the Christmas holidays, these useful ploys appear to lose their dash. You just consider them and plan escapes; still, I might have been undone, had not "Phillip in Particular” edged in an opinion that the Upper Kakahu would be clearing and in perfect order. I smoked half a pipe around those flower beds, and beyond all doubt they had certain weeds in them which wanted care. I simply hated the sight of such lusty weeds. We would get to work and pull them out of that, and perspire accordingly in the hot sunshine, all for the sake of Belinda May, but then came a-running, a little fifteen-j'ear female guest, requesting the loan of a film for her camera, and “Shall I take my bathing things? I do love bathing.” Well, it was a nice cleanly habit, anyway. Young New Zealand is coming on, so I left the garden without undue reluctance, and found her the camera film. Evidently, a foray of sorts was expected, and next came the thought that if you can arrange to fish the Kakahu when the water is yet slightly stained after a heavy fresh, a measure of success is almost assured. Within ten minutes we were on the road, and so to the upjJer Kakahu, where at first sight the angling prospects were riot encouraging. The river was running high, brown coloured halfclear water foaming down the ripples. Still we must manage to catch trout or “form square” to meet scornful words when we went home, and leaving one fisherman with a two-mile stretch oi rocky stream between him and the proposed lunching place, we travelled on. “You needn't worry,” groused Phillip, as I flicked a big “Red Governor” into an eddy at the head of the first ripple, but even as he spoke a big trout plunged at the fly, hooked himself securely, and was off downstream, where we settled matters between us. Then Phillip also was off downstream, cast-, ing with utmost vigour, though he had called my catch a fluke, and a moment later his rod bent nearly double as he: battled with a trout.

Soon we could not doubt that we had struck a lucky day. Apparently it was only necessary to flop a fly into a pool or ripple, and a fish was fast. Pounders and better were in feasting humour. No need at all for careful casting, the coloured water hid any lack of skill, and the trout had the fly whenever they could see it. We might have caught more than we wanted, only for the silly whims of “Phillip in Particular,” who deeming the whole affair quite hopeless, had chosen to leave his creel within the car. On such rare occasions, when every fish in a river is greedy for a fly, and one devoted angler has to carry the catch of two, there is a limit of endurance and anon I refused very plainly to carry more. At lunch-time, we emptied my basket, and the output of trout was most satisfactory, but then came the fabled “exception” .to prove the rule of a lucky day. Just across the stream, on the far side of a ford, a pounder showed him self in a splashing rise; and urged into action by the assembled eaters, I tied my best “Yellow Peril” on the cast, and went forth to slay that pounder. Certainly the trout was willing, taking the fly on sight, but then he plunged headlong for a mass of drifted sticks, and I could not stop him. He kept my Yellow Peril, and I went back to enclose a sandwich. Here let me make my peace with Belinda May, for I will maintain that in the art of putting together an attractive bit of lunch for a fishing party, she has no equal in the world. Everything is tied up separately in neat little white paper packets, so that you open the same with reverence, and like to eat the contents. Sure thing, this matter of making up lunch for a fishing party is one of the greatest arts, and while we were opening the packages, the fisherman whom we had left to his own devices. arrived upon the scene with a bag of twenty trout which averaged over a pound. Further downstream—as we heard later—three rods landed between them, forty-one trout, and above, near the school house at Kakahu Bush, two anglers made a limit catch, so they said—and another, who met up with them said they had sixty fish, but of course, that is only the truth. By the following morning, the news of such successes had naturally been spread abroad through the countryside, and many anglers were busy on the Upper Kakahu—but the fresh had gone seawards, leaving the stream at its normal flow, and the cleverest angler of the lot caught half a dozen trout, others returned with sadly empty baskets, vowing—or more frequently swear ing real hard—that the stream was fish less—but on the Upper Kakahu it is just the same as elsewhere: you must take your opportunities as thev come