Over the Mountains and Through the Woods

Most beautiful trout I have ever caught. Karamea River 1-17-07. In the flat water behind me in this picture under the trees. I can not make out the shapes of the trout under the water with my mono-vision, but the guide directed right to the fish. We hunched down so as not to frighten the fish away. This leviathan took a cicado pattern almost immediately and then really ran down the stream. Richard the guide called out suggestions like low left and low right or high to encourage my bringing the fish to his waiting net. In a quick swoop the fish was in the net after about a 15 minutes struggle. The pictures below include the return of this wonderfully bright color brown trout to the stream. He slipped smoothly away into the current with just a flick of the tail.
This is the Karamea River in the wilderness of New Zealand. It is quite challenging to jump from rock to rock. One of the guides likened it to avoiding tacklers when you have the ball in a rugby game. I sustained a couple of minor bruises but managed quite well. Any time we would fjord the stream we would lock arms and cross together against the current to move more rapidly and avoid any slips.

In the north corner of the New Zealand's south island is the remote wilderness of the Kahurangi National Park. It is revered by backpackers and is a shrine preserved by fishermen and women from around the world. It is the home of the wild and rocky Karamea River and the fishing sites along its length can only be reached by skilled helicopter pilots such as from Nelson Helicopters. The reason for the few adventurers who go there to fish is that the helicopter pilot must be able to set down the copter on a pile of large and small boulders which were not strewn onto the river a million years ago with the purpose of providing a smooth landing area. Yet, the guides of Rotoroa Lodge go there once every few months to help their clients try their skills against the toughest test in all of trout fishing, the huge brown trout who are spooky as all get out and are rumored to run from the smell of humans as well as the misplaced fly line or the uncautious fisherman who tramps to heavily through the stream. Catch one of these it is said, is to catch the prize of all prizes in trout fishing. I caught three with a lot of help from my guide Richard and my friend Andy Larsen. It was pretty much a wow kind of day.

Andy Larsen on the Karamea River in Kurangi National Park 1-18-2007 with our guide Richard. This robust brown trout weighed about 4 pounds and was caught on a special version of the parachute adams which Richard had personnally tied.

This is the helicopter which we rode to the Karamea River. It dropped us in the wilderness in the morning and came back to get us promptly at 5:30 pm.

Every trout in this blog was released back into the wild. Trout, particularly ones that are as wild as these become quite still when held under the belly. The trick is to grab them by the tail and the slide a hand under the belly so that you can take their picture or as is depicted here, prepare them to be released back into the river. You want to do this slowly, wetting your hands first, as most trout find meeting humans face to face less enjoyable than the reverse.

Here one of our released trout swims quickly away from people. Trout are quite shy. Sphere: Related Content