Reel fun: Fly fishing adventures

Thirty-six years ago, when Edith Rose met her husband, Dick, she knew she would have to embrace the other significant female already ensconced in his life and his home. The ‘lady’ in question is a 5.7kg (12½ lb) brown trout hen caught by Dick in the Tongariro River in 1984. “She was probably about ten years old when I caught her and was so large because she was ready to spawn. If I had caught her a couple of days later she would probably have spawned already and would have shrunk to half her caught size,” says Dick, whose prized stuffed and mounted fish resides alongside him and Edith in their Pohutukawa Place home. “I wasn’t very prepared when I landed her,” he recalls. “It took about 30 minutes to get her in and I didn’t have a landing net. Luckily there was another fisherman there, and he lent me his. She was so big she was half hanging out!”

Dick’s first foray into fishing began as a child in England. “I caught my first fish off the Isle of Wight. I instantly lost it. So disappointing!” When Dick moved to New Zealand in 1960, he began surfcasting but was encouraged to try fly fishing by a colleague. He was soon hooked. “I would go at least twice a week after work and bought lots of books on the subject. It was hard to find them back in the 1960s in New Zealand but I have built up my collection over the years and have around sixty.”

Unlike the egalitarian sport it is now, fly fishing originated as a hobby for the landed gentry in England. The rich elite would have a ‘beat’ – yards of river frontage that they, and they alone, could fish from. “The rivers and its contents were not for the ordinary man,” says Dick. “Water bailiffs would patrol to chase off poachers.”

Happily, those archaic rules no longer apply in New Zealand, although a fishing licence and a catch limit is required for the upkeep of rivers and the rearing of trout in the hatcheries. Native to Europe, brown trout were introduced into New Zealand waterways in the 1860s, where they soon flourished. It is now the most common and widespread fish in New Zealand, and can be found in the many rivers in Taranaki. “All the rivers radiate from Mount Taranaki,” says Dick. “The Waitara River, Manganui River, Waingongoro River and Lake Mangamahoe all have great trout fishing. I joined a fishing club and would go to them all.”

Trout are territorial and can be irritated by a fishing fly in their territory. “They are lazy,” says Dick. “They tend to stay behind boulders and catch food that goes past them on the fast-moving currents. If they go for a fly it is usually because it is invading their patch.” That is not always the case, however, and canny anglers understand that they have more success if they use flies and lures that resemble the insects that are in season. “It’s called ‘match the hatch’,” says Dick, who makes many of his own flies and lures and has an impressive array of them in many colours and sizes. Some, like fish roe, are tiny; others, like the cicadas, are larger and very detailed. Dick has an impressive fly-tying table set up in his garage. “It can be quite fiddly,” he says. “The magnified glasses help!”

Dick introduced Edith to fly fishing, and the pair have enjoyed many happy river trips together. “It took a long time for me to get the casting right,” laughs Edith, who has caught plenty of fish in her own right. “We put them in the freezer, and in my daughter’s freezer when we have run out of room in ours!” laughs Edith. “Then we can defrost and smoke them when we need them. There’s nothing like smoked trout, and the leftovers make a nice fish pie.”

The pair have lived in their village for 18 months and enjoy their community. “We are meeting new people all the time; everyone is very friendly. There’s so much to do here,” says Dick. While his beloved stuffed trout may weigh in at 5.7kg, it’s a 4kg prize that has captured their hearts. “Our great granddaughter was born at the end of February,” says Edith proudly, “while Dick was out trout fishing! She is named Hazel Rose, after her great grandpop, Dick Rose!”

This is an article from the Spring 2024 edition of Summerset Scene magazine

Click here to read the full issue