Sometimes crazy things happen. Typically It seems the craziest things happen when you're least expecting it, but perhaps that's why they seem wild. One particular day during our time in New Zealand the stars aligned for us to have one of the most unique experiences of our lives.
After a few weeks of exploring and fishing in New Zealand, we learned what to look for on maps and how to cross-reference different maps and watershed information to find ideal fishing grounds. We found a river that looked suitable and we read online some information that this river had some cool opportunities for some good-sized fish in its system. During our research, we never read anything about access so we assumed we would be fine as we had been throughout the majority of New Zealand. Thus far we'd experienced a fairly relaxed culture as far as river access and politely trespassing to access rivers. This was a stark comparison to a few of our experiences in the American West where we had seen the competitive unfriendly nature between ranchers and fishermen.
As we set out for the day we left our campsite in high spirits excited for another day exploring another beautiful river in New Zealand, however about 15 minutes down the road we realized we had forgotten our trash outside at our campsite. We decided to turn around and go grab our trash sacrificing a half hour of river time to fix our groggy early morning forgetfulness. As we set out back down the road toward the river after throwing away our bag of trash, my mind wandered to the larger picture of life. I thought of things happening for reasons unknown. I thought of past dogs, relationships, covid, and decisions I had made to get to exactly the spot I was in. “is there really a plan? Is it all random? Does anything have any larger meanings?” Classic existential car ride thoughts. I still don't know the answer but some things seem too perfect to be an accident.
As my thoughts wandered we covered ground and soon we were bumping down a gravel road headed towards our planned river access. As our old 800,000 km Toyota van lumbered along, a white flatbed pickup truck approached us from the opposite direction. As we drew nearer it became clear the driver wanted to chat and we slowed to a halt with the window down next to his truck.
“Where are you mates headed.” he asked us in his thick New Zealand accent.
“We are just trying to get to the river to do a little fishing.” we replied.
He chuckled a little bit and explained to us that there was no public access to the river we were trying to reach. He had encountered a few fishermen in the past who had given him a case of beer or 2 in exchange for access across his cattle and deer farm to fish the river. We replied that we would be happy to get him a case of beer in exchange for access to the river. He replied he would be happy to help us out in that case and that he would be around most of the day if we needed to find him. We decided to turn around and find another river for that day and planned to show up the next morning with a few cases of beer.
The next day as we were bumping right along the farm road with 3 fresh cases of cold beer, we heard a repeating thud in the distance and glanced up to see a blue helicopter flying in front of us carrying a dead deer under it. Surprised to see such a thing I simply watched in amazement as the vehicle flew off into the distance and soon we were pulling up to the barn on the farm. As we parked, our farmer friend mosied out of the barn cleaning his bloody hands with a rag. He explained he had killed a few deer this morning and the one we saw was being flown to a processor to be sold and he was cleaning others in the barn for personal consumption. We happily unloaded our beer and eagerly listened to his hunting stories. After a few minutes, he seemed to get an idea and pulled out his phone. As he dialed numbers and the phone began ringing he gave us a cheeky grin of excitement. Confused we stood there and waited to hear what he had to say on the phone. He seemed to ask a friend if he was busy and if he could come help him out with something. He then hung up and didn't say much except “he should be right over.”
About a minute later a familiar faint thud began approaching and my heart lept with nervous excitement. A helicopter was overhead moments later and began descending. As he lowered and landed in the lot outside the barn I thought “Is this guy going to land on top of our van?” He set the heli down next to our van and a man hopped out and trotted out to the farmer. They exchanged a few words then the farmer walked over and shouted over the sound of the helicopter blades and asked us if we wanted to go stay in his backcountry hut for a few days and do some fishing. Astonished and dumbfounded at the opportunity we sputtered words for a minute trying to figure out if this was reality or not. After a moment of discussion, we decided to do it. After all In 50 years looking back, how would we feel if we hadn't gotten in the heli? Unprepared we quickly threw some gear together and tossed it in a bag and handed it to the pilot. He then gave us the world's fastest safety briefing essentially telling us to not get our heads chopped off by the blades entering or exiting the copter and with that, we were off.
Headphones on, we excitedly peered around the small cockpit wondering where we were headed off to. The pilot clambered in and began taking off. The whole thing began to shake and lift into the air, a feeling I have never experienced anywhere else. Soon we tilted forward and we were off on our way, zipping along just above the tree tops. We flew over the flatlands and a few hills before we entered a stunning valley with a crystal clear turquoise blue river below us with a Jurassic-seeming jungle lining the valley on either side of the river. Massive pools and boulders dotted the river along with unique gravel bars providing many different interesting river features. We approached the backcountry hut we were going to stay in and descended. We jumped out and tossed our gear in the hut quickly before taking off again and heading a little ways back downriver. This was another extremely useful action as now we wouldn't have to waste time backtracking and could simply fish our entire way to camp that night.
The pilot descended again dropped us off near a huge pool and went on his way. As the thud of the rotors faded the reality of what just happened began to set in. We were now miles in the backcountry on a pristine river, with camp already set up for the night and all we had to do was fish our way up all day long. The river was larger than it seemed from above in the helicopter but was every bit as beautiful. All I could think was "is this because we forgot the trash?"
New Zealand has a long-standing legend in the fly-fishing community for its beautiful scenery and impressive fish size. However, it is also known that its fish can be quite difficult to find often time extremely few and far between giving way to the rumored myth: “one fish a mile” We found this to be a bit of an oversimplification as this was most definitely the case on some rivers but not on others. However, for this particular river, this was most definitely the case. We slowly crept along the banks of the river carefully scanning for any movements in the river or objects out of place. After a few miles of searching, we spotted our first fish. It was out in the very center of a wide section of the river happily eating on the surface. Unfortunately, this section of the river was heavily forested with no wadeable banks. The river cut clean through the rocks creating a large pool with small canyon walls on either side. This meant we had no realistic way to cast at this fish. Our best shot was to make a 50-yard float down to it and hope we could stick it on the upstream set. We watched the fish for 10 minutes or so and ideated on possible strategies to catch the fish but eventually decided to let the fish be. It was a smart fish, the king of the pool and he knew nobody could touch him. We decided it was in our best interest to spend our time focusing on a fish where we would have a better chance at getting to the net.
This was a difficult decision and for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about turning around and giving that fish a shot. We hiked for a few more hours without seeing any more fish and almost called it a day as our lighting conditions started to fade. I decided to push us around one more corner further upriver to continue the search, but at this point, we had resorted to mostly just hiking and chatting, figuring we wouldn't have the conditions to see any more fish today. Then, as we walked up a bank something caught the periphery of my vision and I immediately stopped dead in my tracks. I slowly turned my head as I watched a dark line in front of a stump in the river shimmy and rise up to sip something off the surface of the water. Finally, a fish we had a good shot at catching. After a full day of hiking, we had a single chance at a single fish.
We slowly backed up behind the fish and I quietly and carefully approached the river as I pulled line out from the reel, unhooked my fly from a guide, and prepared to make a delicate cast. I made a few false casts to check my distance and laid down a cast with a single dry fly as my heart pounded in my chest. I made a cast just outside to the left of the fish's zone and patiently waited for what felt like years for the fly to float by the fish. No movement. I gently picked up the line and made a false cast to adjust my placement then carefully set the fly back down just upstream and a few inches to the left of the fish. As the fly drifted near the tree stump sticking out of the water I watched as a dark line wiggled over and made a ripple on the surface of the water. The fish had fallen for it. I patiently waited for the fish to begin returning to its position in front of the stump, remembering the famous kiwi quote 'god save the queen' before I set the hook and came tight with the fish.
Immediately the water exploded with tail thrashing rigor as the fish writhed in panic. Having a large gravel bank behind me I began to step backwards maintaining tension in the line, bend in the rod, and getting the fish on the reel rather than fighting this fish with my hands. He took off making a short run to the middle of the river then simply digging in with the current, desperately trying to avoid being captured. I carefully fought the fish on the light line bringing him to the shallows before he made another scary run toward the end of the fight pulling a leader knot through the guides on my rod, one of the worst feelings any fly fishermen get when fighting a world-class fish. Luckily the knot did not catch and break the fish off, he made his run and I slowly corralled him back toward the shallows and scooped him up in the net.
This fish was stunning. The blue backed brown trout reminded me of a snowy leopard more than a brown trout. This fish was silver and blue not the classic brown trout colors with a greenback and a honey-yellow belly. It was a long blue-backed New Zealand brown trout. The kind I had been dreaming of for years, and I got to catch it in the most picturesque spot I had ever been in my whole life. Immense gratitude filled me as I released the beautiful creature to be caught another day. Thoughts of purpose, belonging, and greater plans again filled my head, forcing me to wonder if this was all part of the plan. Forgetting the trash so we timed our passing of the farmer perfectly to put us in this place at this time. If we hadn't turned around for our trash we had forgotten we might've never stumbled into this twist of fate.
As we ecstatically made our way back to the hut in dim light and dew, we thought of the next day and our chances at finding another fish before our heli transit back to the farm arrived. We found a few old warm beers lying around the hut and opened a few in celebration of the caught fish as we prepared dinner and got ready for bed.
The next morning I was working the camera as we worked upriver above the section we had worked the day before. It was a gray morning with a slight on-and-off drizzle. Lighting conditions were poor, glare was bad, and flat light made spotting fish difficult. We hiked a few kilos up when we found ourselves in a large boulder garden in the river. Large boulders placed there from massive floods of the past created a large rapid section and just above this was a tail out of a riffle with a large deep pool before the start of the rapids. As Hayden approached the river to search for fish tucked close to the rocks I found a higher vantage point on top of a large boulder on the bank of the river.
As I scanned I noticed another line like the day before, but this time in front of a rock in the large pool. I alerted Hayden and we discussed possible options. I even threw out the idea of backtracking and crossing the river as the fish appeared to be within better casting distance from the opposite bank but we eventually settled on staying where we were and giving it a long bomb cast. Hayden is an impressive caster and sent one way out to the fish’s zone. He made one drift with a large dry fly in an attempt to revoke an aggressive feeding response. This did not work so we opted for a fly change.
He sent out a few casts but I saw no movement from the fish. I determined the fish hadn't seen the fly as we were throwing a small dry fly across a large pool with lots of current and wind to try to hit a very small target zone in front of the fish. This was a very difficult task. I could hardly see the fly but I saw the fish feed on the surface and told Hayden to send another one further out in the river and a few more inches upstream to lead the fish just a few more inches so that he could get a drag-free drift in the fish’s zone. He made 2 false casts and launched a cast out across the pool from a rock perch on the bank. Luckily had had plenty of room for a backcast. The fly delicately landed upstream of the rock and I squinted even through the camera to try to see the fly. We both patiently waited as the river floated the bug down to the fish while our hearts pounded in our chests. I saw a movement on the surface and excitedly alerted Hayden. He paused just 1 second to let the fish come down with his fly then lifted his rod to find it come tight and bend over.
The large fish writhed in the center of the river and sent a few boils to the surface before making a deep run in the pool and then seeking cover in the boulders near the bank. Hayden managed to fight the fish and pull it out from directly below him as the fish tried to run downstream and flashed on the surface. He prevented the fish from escaping and slowly managed to pull the fish upstream then scoop it up in the net from his rock perch. An impressive sequence of events and fly-fishing teamwork at its finest. We were both giddy with excitement. I climbed down from my crow's nest on the boulder and snapped a few photos of the fish before we released him back to the beautiful cool icy blue waters.
We had both caught the fish of our dreams in the place of dreams. As we hiked back to the hut we alerted our pilot that we were heading back as the weather began to turn. We packed up our gear tossed it in the heli a few minutes later and we were on our way back to the farm. He dropped us off right next to our van and just as quick as he came the copter was gone and we were left standing next to a random farmer's barn in New Zealand wondering what we ever did to be lucky enough to unknowingly stumble into an experience unlike any other in our lives. I wondered was this plan always here for me. What other things like this are there in store for me in my life? From that day on we always carried a case of beer in the van.
Videos of these catches are on our Youtube channel @Hooksetprojects!