Fishing

Hank and I took Jorit fishing the other day. We spent a couple of days tying flies for the trip. I told Jorit I’d pick him up at 6:00 AM, but when he called at 6:25 I realized I missed my alarm. We got going quickly and picked him up, but had to stop back at our place to get the chilly bin we forgot. Finally, we got going at 7:15 for the 2 hour drive to the Maniototo. We stopped where we first crossed the Taieri River, but didn’t see any activity and so continued. After Patearoa, we found the next river crossing and geared up, Jorit with a spinning rod and I with a fly. Right away we saw fish rising, and Jorit had a follow, but then nothing. The river was quite warm and weedy. We then stopped at the first of many ponds. Here we saw many fish cruising, but we couldn’t entice them. At the second pond, Jorit had a strike but didn’t hook the fish. At the third pond, I finally had a strike, and Jorit had 2 more, but again no joy. The fourth pond was a bust, and then we were back to the river. Hank was making occasional casts with my rod, until I can get him one of his own. He eventually found a stick and I tied on some line, and Jorit gave him some hooks, so he was happy to fish with that the rest of the day. A few more stops along the river were similarly unsuccessful. In one hole, I saw four fish, all over 2 kg, and proceeded to scare one fish with each cast I made, until they were all gone. The water was very low and clear and so too hard for me. Altogether we saw probably 25 good fish and didn’t catch a single one. We then took the shortcut over the old Dunstan Road to Loganburn Dam, where Jorit made a couple of casts just to say he did. 40 minutes later we were at Outram for one last try, but again nothing. I dropped off Jorit with him saying he wanted to go out again the next day, so I guess he enjoyed it. Hank sure did – he didn’t want to leave.