TO FISH NEW ZEALAND

A tiny set of islands southeast of Australia is so vastly different from their English homeland that the first settlers imported their bloodsport follies to make paradise livable. Like Joni Mitchell sings, "find paradise and make it into a parking lot." Unlike Australia , New Zealand had no deadly snakes, not even a bad predator akin to saltwater crocs or four legged dingos. New Zealand is a temperature Hawaii, a pastoral refuge for the second- sons of British gentry. They imported there Tahr , Chamois, Red Stag an old-world Elk, new World Elk, even a Moose or two and most fitting the trout.

I have fished the worlds flats, blue waters for billfish, stalked exciting tarpon, and fooled pargo. I was raised by my gentile father, a successful community developer in Trout Valley and caught his big-spring creek brown named Bertha one fine summer day. From them forth it was the Loch Leven Brown that infected my brain . It is trout with cane rods, water cress choked spring creeks and Montana freestone water that have my keen interest. From Alaska to Europe across the Americas trout are a fancy especially when they are rising to sip a evening bug floating through their lie. IN the early days, my scientist friends at Genentech blew off pressure by Fly fishing Pyramid Lake in Reno or the Stone-fly hatch on Madison in Montana. I kept hearing rumbles of New Zealand and back country fish as long as your arm. I took my eldest son Nicholas who was home schooling with us and in early February after a family reunion in Lake Tahoe where we were buried in avalanches, we flew down to the South Island and headed to the Twizel area to stalk these mythical trout.

I fell in love with Zane Greys trout fishing exploits and we were seeing the Southern Cross swaying to Stephens Stills epic song. Always keep left, I was told by the car rental man and when you're driving and turn on the light and the wiper come most Kiwi will pull off the road. We were driving on the proper side, eating minced meat pie at every gas station
and learning the Queen's adjectives like, "Magic", "Brilliant", " "Good as Gold" and "Good On You."

And there it was a lone brown trout, I guess to be at least 22 inch. I told my son to keep his shadow off the water as we walked the banks of a back water lake. A dandy brown on his beat and with the flip and two false cast I flayed the fly ten feet away before he turned to circle his beat again. Slowly he came in my direction and within three feet of the gnat my wrists tighten in anticipation. Once he saw the bug , the big brown flipped his tail to attack the high profile dry fly. He came over without a care to sip and when his jaw broke surface I lifted the 5 weight rod, felt his weight and set the hook... Too fast and he drove back to the deep. But there would be many more stalking and , when I was told to mutter, God Shave the Queen," my hookups increased logarithmic.