Fly Fishing with John Black

posted by John Black on Nov 25

I go to New Zealand a lot and I really like the place. I like the people, I like the fly fishing and I like the fact that Kiwis still make real beer.  Some of the nicest beers are made by Monteith’s Brewery, from a remote little place called Greymouth, on the west coast of the South Island.

At Greymouth’s local Pike River Coal Mine, 29 underground miners have died in a couple of mine explosions. They were mostly local Kiwis, with a couple of Australians.

My heart hurts when I think of their families and mates this week and over the coming months as they come to terms with what has happened to them and to their little Coasters’ community, where everyone knows someone who has lost their lives.

A trust fund for the miners’ families has been started by the company and I’ll add details to this post when they are available. A hundred dollars from every overseas fly fisherman who’s ever visited that area to arm wrestle the local brown trout would be a good way for us all to start Christmas.

Meanwhile, you can drink them a Christmas toast with a Monteith’s Black. Or several Monteiths Blacks – to help both you and the Greymouth economy.

Update, December 7, 2010.

Donations to The Pike River Miners’ Relief Fund can be made to the fund by direct credit to 06-0501-0121759-02 or by post to Pike Miners’ Relief Fund, PO Box 2793, Wellington.

ANZ bank donated $NZ100,00o  into an account it opened to receive donations for the miners’ families.

People can donate at ANZ or National Bank branches (both with account number 01 1841 0052483 00).

BNZ bank also set up an account, 02 0844 0074501-00, and donated $100,000.

The ASB bank said it would be making a substantial donation to the account it set up, 12-3205-0146728-00.

The Parents Centres New Zealand also started an account fund to receive donations for a trust fund to support the families of miners who were soon to be fathers or had small children.

Donations could be made to ASB account 12 3142 0161284 01.

Variety International has received significant donations from New Zealanders living in America, following the international media coverage. Donations could be made at www.variety.org.nz.

posted by John Black on Nov 23

I discovered Creel Lodge about 20 years ago and I keep coming back.

It’s called a lodge and although it doesn’t have the traditional lodge styled dining and lounge areas, I love it.

It’s right on the mighty Tongariro, the best fly fishing river in the world for libidinous steelhead on their winter spawning run and for bad tempered browns in the summer. You can just walk out the back gate and you’re there.

And after a successful day on the water, there’s nothing quite like walking in the back gate and up past all the other guests enjoying their afternoon beer, while you are nonchalantly swinging a six pound plus steelhead. Look at me. Man hunt good. Primal stuff.

There’s a drying room for your waders, a cleaning room for the trout, there’s a crusty old guy called Horty up the road to smoke and vacuum pack your trout and there’s plenty of local places to eat.

Try Valentinos for some Italian; there’s a pub further up the river which has a curry night every Thursday and we really enjoyed the Tongariro Lodge meals which are open to Creel guests most nights.  There’s a full kitchen and fridge in each room and the local supermarket sells everything a civilized person could want … including fresh mussels, ginger, garlic and beer, New Zealand lamb, rosemary, some nice reds, some delightfully soft and tangy cheeses. It’s not hard to take.

The rates are very reasonable and there’s a wireless network if you want to bring your computer and keep in touch with the rest of the world. I wrote my election review articles from the front porch over a bottle or two of the South Island Monteith’s Black Beer accompanied by smoked trout. It’s fun watching New Zealand news services as the journalists there tend to report news, rather than talk to each other and call it expert commentary.

Out in front is Scottie who runs the Creel Tackle House and Steve who ties the flies and there’s a lovely old chocolate Lab who checks out all the guests. Scottie can put you in touch with a local guide, if you need one.

Up the back is the owner Peter, who keeps an eye on things. Creel is open 365 days a year, like the Tongariro. Put it on the bucket list if you haven’t already been.

Creel Lodge Link

posted by John Black on Nov 21

It wasn’t the best of starts, really.

Here I was, with the bride to be, in the heart of the Scottish highlands, trying to pronounce the Gaelic names of my dad’s Scottish ancestors and getting to know the new Pommie in laws.

In a lay bye café en route to Loch Rannoch, we had seen our first kilts, casually worn in an everyday fashion, by large, bearded, redheaded men. Standing behind another, more conventionally dressed redheaded couple chatting away in the coffee queue, I observed to my future father in law that, despite my genealogical research, I couldn’t understand a word of this local Gaelic. I was trying to be modest. You know, to make an impression.

He replied, deadpan – “That’s not surprising, really John, they’re talking in German”.  Ouch.

The Rannoch region had been devastated by English government troops after the 1745 rebellion, when the Redcoats built their barracks at the headwaters of Loch Rannoch, on the River Tummel.

This barracks, presumably with a few more recent add-ons, is now the home of Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Fortunately for me, Lord Pearson has a ghillie called Ian Nelson, who told me that a pike, in Barracks’ Pool, near Lord Pearson’s home, had been ‘creating merry hell’ with the local trout.

So, the next afternoon, armed with a new fluorocarbon leader, complete with wire trace and my best Aussie Murray Cod frog fly, I appeared nervously at the Barracks’ Pool. Also in tow were Jeanine’s parents, out for the drive, and looking a little sceptical.

The Barracks’ Pool is about 50 metres long and about 25 metres wide and spreads in a graceful arc, before the River Tummel joins the Loch. It looked up to four to five metres deep, and had some huge brown boulders right in the middle, easily visible in the whiskey-coloured water a metre or so down below the surface – exactly the right sort of cover for an ambush predator like the Australian Murray Cod, and, I guessed, for some Tummel pike.

I flicked out a floating line from my eight weight Loomis and popped the artificial frog behind, and then in front of, all the biggest rocks in the middle of the pool, working my way systematically upstream, trying to arouse the territorial instincts of the creatures I knew were down there. I gradually became totally absorbed by that wonderful combination of science, nature and art that is fly-fishing.

Nearer the banks, I’d plop the frog fly gently down on the water, like it dropped from a branch, then two bloops, drift downstream, slow retrieve, then pause like the frog was injured or tired … then repeat a metre further upstream.

It was one of those days when my cast seemed to work, no snags or tangles, the line shot out perfectly, the fly hit exactly the right spot … one bloop, two bloops, then BANG!

One of the nastiest looking predator pike I’d ever seen hit my little frog fly with such upward force it was momentarily airborne, starting a 20 minutes tug of war between me and what can only be described as an underwater thug, which had to be turned and then steered away from every underwater obstacle in the pool, until he was finally pulled onto an exposed ledge of the rock I’d been standing on, with his massively disproportionate jaws still trying to chew his way through my wire trace. Seven pounds of angry trout-eating pike were out of the pool for good. I could almost hear the trout cheering.

The deer haired body of my fly had been mangled and it had lost one eye, the wire trace was kaput, and I was exhausted. But I’d proved a point. I was fishing with a fly I’d picked myself, in untried waters, with a totally different species, based only on what I’d been able to learn in another country on the other side of the world. It felt great.

When I got home to Australia, I asked my beloved how I was travelling with the in-laws, after the trip, what with a few minor hitches, namely that I was 20 years’ older, divorced, with three adult children, protestant, and an Aussie to boot. Little things like that.

Apparently, I was fine. I’d passed muster. The reason?

The fly fishing afternoon on the Barracks’ Pool had convinced the in laws that anyone who could master such a graceful form of artistic endeavour as fly fishing, was good enough for their only daughter.

Yet another reason, dear reader, to go fly-fishing whenever you can. And try to take, not only your beloved, but the in laws as well.

Copyright John Black 2007. Pictures by the lovely Dr Jeanine McMullan. First published in FlyLife Short Casts.