I previously wrote about the prohibition on buying and selling trout in New Zealand. The only way for me to have trout for dinner is to catch it myself. So, for my birthday, Matt hired a fishing guide to take us out in pursuit of the cagey brown trout.
I would not say I am an avid fisherman. My idea of fishing is to hire a guide who provides the equipment and takes me to a place to fish. He/she hands me a rod ready to go, points and says fish there. My hope was that by hiring a guide, we could at least get the feel of fishing for trout. And we made clear to the guide that fly fishing was not in the cards. I have to catch a trout by using a lure such as a spinner, or nothing.
Because he was not local, we agreed to meet halfway, which put us in Upper Hutt, to the north and east of Wellington. His idea was for us to fish the Hutt River. Sounded fine to me. What do I know? He’s the guide. He brought both rod and reel and fly-fishing gear. He wanted me to at least try fly-fishing. But we started with a regular fishing rod.
The guide, James, reminded me how to use a fishing rod. Seriously, I have not done this for years. Paranoid after the sand fly attack, I put on fingerless gloves to prevent bites on my hands. On my first cast, my gloves were so slippery, the rod flew out of my hands and into the river. A lot of laughter but no panic. I waded in and retrieved it. Then I removed the gloves.
The guide kept pointing at shadows he said were trout. He urged me to cast near the shadow. God knows I tried. He even tried. No luck. So we moved on to the Lower Hutt, closer to Wellington. Even though we were in a suburb, the river was crystal clear and once again, we could see the fish. But they absolutely refused to take us up on any of our bait.
At this point, frustrated at our inability to catch a fish, the guide pulled out his fly-fishing rod. He showed me how to cast. I wasn’t very good at it but worse, I wasn’t interested in it. If you can think of a hard way to catch a fish, fly fishing would be it. Fly fishing is a belief that you can outsmart a trout by sneaking up on it. It struck me that this is a guy thing. Only a man could come up with such an inefficient way to catch a fish. There is a technique to learn, flies to tie and waters to wade. It’s a whole world devoted to trying to catch a fish by pretending to be a fly on the water. There has got to be an easier way! I am in this for a meal, not a trophy. I will stick to spinners thanks.
Regardless of the type of gear, the entire day was a bust. The fish simply were not biting. No trout for my birthday dinner.
But we were not deterred. Having had a refresher on how to fish, (at least I needed it), we agreed that we would outfit ourselves with some gear and see if we could successfully fish for trout in the local rivers. The guy selling us the equipment thought we were kind of kooky—two Americans telling him we had no clue what we needed so just tell us and we will buy it. No, he did not take advantage of us. In fact, he did not sell us everything we needed as we learned later on.
A few weeks later, we headed to the Otaki River, which is very close to us. We had been there for about an hour with nothing to show for it when I gave up. I could not find a fish. Matt had lost a lure and, not wanting to spend the time to tie on another hook, he asked to borrow my rod. After a few casts, he got a bite and reeled it in. Tada! Lo and behold, Matt caught a rainbow trout in the Otaki River.
The salesman at the outdoor store forgot to sell us a fishing net, so the poor thing was flopping around on the ground. We did buy an “immobilizer” meaning a club to hit the fish on the head and stun it. But this fish simply did not want to be stunned. It took a few blows. I felt bad. I did not like hitting it. But a person has to do what she has to do to get a meal.
I cleaned it and cooked it up. Delicious! Finally, I had trout in New Zealand. I should add, along the way I foraged some nasturtium to garnish the asparagus, so I guess we can call this living off the land and water.
A Yank Among the Kiwis 