Tag: Fly fishing

Once Upon a Time on the Mohaka….

I’ve been thinking some about mortality lately, in part due to venturing into my fifties. In vehicular terms, you’ve just passed the 100,000 mile mark. All manufacturer’s bets are off, and the needle on the tank shows closer to empty than full. In part it’s the season, the sun low and fleeting, nights long and cold, nature stripped bare. In part, the sudden passing of a family member, and realizing the folly of believing there will always be a tomorrow to finish whatever is put off today.

When my time comes, there’s a river in New Zealand I wouldn’t mind having a few ashes scattered on. It’s called the Mohaka, and it flows out of the Ahimanawa mountains in the east-central North Island. In twenty five years of river running, its has given me moments of elation and anguish, inspiration and fear. I’ve had my best day of fly fishing ever on its waters – no camera to record it, no other soul to witness it, just me and the river. I’ve stood on its banks knees weak, insides knotted with dread, a crew member from my raft missing in its raging waters for over an hour, and felt the waves of relief when he was found, safe and sound. It has been the scene of my most challenging guide trip – three days for no fish – and also the provider of my biggest tips.

When a recent family event necessitated an impromptu trip back to New Zealand, a day on the Mohaka was my number one recreational priority. I managed to hook up with Steve, a friend who’s been fishing and hunting the central North Island for the best part of three decades. In that time of guiding the rich and famous he’s walked away from helicopter crashes, dodged the slings and arrows of outraged husbands, caught more fish than is decent, and like most guides probably drank enough to kill several small elephants in the process.

It had been over five years since I’d had oars and feet planted in a New Zealand river, and in terms of my fishing technique, it showed. Despite knowing better, it always seems to take a while to reintroduce myself to the realities of New Zealand fishing. You tend to not get too many opportunities, so a fish missed as the result of a clumsy cast or mistimed hook set or too tight a rein always leaves you pondering, wondering: will the river will give you another chance, or has she shut the door on your face and turned the key? Gentle Colorado-style hook sets get treated with head shaking disdain, while attempting to arrest that first charging run with a drag set too tight results in bent hooks and the kind of language that would make a sailor blush.

Fortunately this day, the Mohaka was a patient mistress. My first fumblings were tolerated, and after taking a break for lunch and a beer, I got my mojo working at last. The reward for me was a couple of lovely fish, a rainbow and a brown, a day spent on a special river in perfect company, and the commitment to ensure that it is not another five years hence before I again get to immerse myself in the sights, sounds and smells of one of the most special places on Earth.

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Heraclitus Floats the Upper Colorado

No man, proclaimed Heraclitus twenty five centuries ago, ever steps into the same river twice. He was, of course, referring as much to the person setting foot in the river as the river itself. I thought about this recently as I sat on the banks of the Upper Colorado, my first visit to this stretch of the river for twenty three years.

Back then, I was newly arrived in the States, not yet fully savvy to the ways and foibles of America and Americans. “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, driving on the wrong side of the road in vehicles the size of a Third World apartment, breakfasts so big they require several plates to contain them, the aridity of the landscape, and the fact that people would pay good money to float for days on flat water, while mile-long coal trains rumbled by and the occasional semi kicked up dust working through the gears hauling hay from a nearby ranch, itself festooned with barbed wire and threats against trespass.

I was looking at the river through the eyes of a whitewater rafter then, not as an angler now. River running in New Zealand tended to be more of a wilderness experience, the rougher, more remote and wilder the better. It took getting deeper into fishing to see another side of a river – long grassy banks with gently swirling current seams and undercuts, subtle shading and drop offs, foamy back eddies that held promise and potential. The pace is more leisurely, the treasures more subtle.

Over the ensuing years my perception of what passes for the color green has changed. I now drive around in my own Third World apartment. I still try to limit my breakfast to a single plate. While train tracks are a distraction, I understand why they are where they are. Dry has as much claim to beauty as lush.

And through it all the river flows with its own timeless dignity that transcends the transient insult of dams, diversions and the folly of claims of ownership.

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Heraclitus floats the Upper Colorado

No man, proclaimed Heraclitus twenty five centuries ago, ever steps into the same river twice. He was, of course, referring as much to the person setting foot in the river as the river itself. I thought about this recently as I sat on the banks of the Upper Colorado, my first visit to this stretch of the river for twenty three years.

Back then, I was newly arrived in the States, not yet fully savvy to the ways and foibles of America and Americans. “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”, driving on the wrong side of the road in vehicles the size of a Third World apartment, breakfasts so big they require several plates to contain them, the aridity of the landscape, and the fact that people would pay good money to float for days on flat water, while mile-long coal trains rumbled by and the occasional semi kicked up dust working through the gears hauling hay from a nearby ranch, itself festooned with barbed wire and threats against trespass.

I was looking at the river through the eyes of a whitewater rafter then, not as an angler now. River running in New Zealand tended to be more of a wilderness experience, the rougher, more remote and wilder the better. It took getting deeper into fishing to see another side of a river – long grassy banks with gently swirling current seams and undercuts, subtle shading and drop offs, foamy back eddies that held promise and potential. The pace is more leisurely, the treasures more subtle.

Over the ensuing years my perception of what passes for the color green has changed. I now drive around in my own Third World apartment. I still try to limit my breakfast to a single plate. While train tracks are a distraction, I understand why they are where they are. Dry has as much claim to beauty as lush.

And through it all the river flows with its own timeless dignity that transcends the transient insult of dams, diversions and the folly of claims of ownership.

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The Descent Of Man

The day had started full of hope and aspiration. The sun shone on our backs, the river, if a little murky, was the perfect level for floating, bugs mingled with the cottonwood seeds carried on the intermittent breeze, and a shapely young lass wearing an orange bikini sunned herself on the rocks below the F St Bridge. It was a great day to be alive, on a raft, with a box full of dry flies.

I believe there is a natural order to fly fishermen, as there is to most species. Occupying the lower rungs of the ladder stands the streamer fisherman, struggling valiantly toward the sunlight, weighed down by his genetic closeness to the spin fisherman. Next comes the nympher, crawling slowly from the primordial soup, while standing aloft, alone and imperious, both feet planted firmly on dry ground, stands the dry fly fisherman. Like all creatures at the top of their respective food chain, they are relatively sparse in numbers. Streamers and nymphers will say this is likely due to starvation, given the fact Dry Fly Guy tends to catch fewer fish than anyone else. This may be so, but not for he the hollow sanctuary of numbers.

Except that this day, I learned something about myself. Fishing should never be about numbers, yet there is a big difference between catching one fish, and catching no fish. After a couple of fruitless hours, my resolve to fish only dries crumbled nearly as quick as the veneer of civilization in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I realized I was prepared to hit the take out having caught nothing all day, but not without trying everything first. Out went the dries, on went the bobber. Nothing. Out went the nymphs, on went the dreaded streamer. It is not that I have anything against fishing streamers per se, rather that it all gets a little repetitive: Slap, strip, strip. Slap, strip, strip. Slap, strip, strip. Etc.

But it is surely an effective way to catch a fish. If I was sent somewhere remote, and had to eat trout to stay alive, I’d take a black wooly bugger before anything other fly. After a couple of miles, and a couple of hundred casts, patience and abandonment of principles were duly rewarded. I immediately went back to fishing dries to redeem myself, but not soon enough to shake off that vague feeling of seediness. Dante wrote several centuries ago that in order for our souls to be purified, they must first descend to the pits of Hell, where demons and angels tear from us that which has become corrupted during our previous life. Once this process is complete, we rise again, purified, ready to be reborn into the next existence. I reckon, one day back when, he too must have been reduced to tying on a wooly bugger.

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High and Dry on the Arkansas

Its all relative, so while 750 cfs might not sound much like high water to those who know the river, when you’ve been rowing fishing trips this spring at 160 cfs, it seems like a positive deluge. Add to that the fact that now is the time of the year when you can throw outrageously big dry flies and fish might actually eat them, the weather is warm enough to leave waders at home and bring Corona instead, and it is little wonder that post run-off is my favorite time to be on the river.

Well, favorite time of the year for what it is. I’m also pretty fond of fall, for the colors and the quickening, and spring for the feeling of light at the end of the tunnel. But there is little that can beat sitting in the shade of a riverside tree, the last vestiges of morning’s cool dissipating with the rising sun, the taste of cold lager lingering on your tongue, gazing at the mountains and wondering what the peasants are doing that day.

The thing with dry flies is that usually, you know you could catch more fish if you tied on a nymph below, but there’s something empowering, slightly elitist even, about choosing not to. It is a reminder that its all about the process rather than the result, and results can be measured in ways more than simple numerics. One thing I like about casting big, gaudy flies is the amount of head scratching that goes on among the fish – they’ll swim out to look at it, poke at it, kick the tires before discretion gets the better of them and they return to their station, unconvinced. Seldom does a dead drift work in such situations- an angler needs to impart some movement to give the fly the appearance of being immersed in a struggle for life. A twitch, a skitter, a skate, a tumble off the rocks and into the water – anything to bring out the fish’s inner predator.

But at the end of the day, the point is to have spent a day in the pursuit of something essentially pointless. Therein lies the ultimate richness and luxury of a day spent in idleness, floating a river.

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