Fly-fishing and the art of deception

As a New Year resolution, Stuff journalist Warren Gamble decided he needed a new hobby. Here he dips his toes into the genteel but obsessive world of fly-fishing.

“Tug is the drug,” Zane Mirfin says as we wade into the Motueka River.

The fishing guide legend has a playbook of sayings and stories as colourful and extensive as the boxes of artificial flies, lines and tricks honed over 36 years of duelling with the royalty of freshwater fish, the redoubtable trout.

“The world is seriously messed up; the best thing you can do is to go fishing,” he says.

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It’s hard to argue as we leave pandemics and parliamentary protests behind and head for the nationally protected river that winds through undulating countryside 45 minutes from Nelson city.

I’m on a quest to find a new hobby. Inspired by my friend Meg Goodman, I figure I may as well try something different.

She was bitten by the fly-fishing bug four months ago and now has a rod, a growing assortment of flies, and an insatiable appetite for scrambling around waterways in the top of the south.

She can talk for ages about the trout she has caught on her back-country adventures and the ones that got away, and the sheer joy of the accompanying nature fix.

“You get so engaged in it; there’s no room for anything else,” she says.

At our first stop, I get ready. I look the part, if faintly ridiculous, in waders, boots, a fisherman’s vest and a floppy camo hat.

However, clothes do not maketh the fisherman, especially fly-fishers.

That’s because it’s seriously tricky. To be good you need a grasp of entomology, psychology, geology, meteorology, and that’s before you set up your line. You need a weird combination of skill and temperament to get that line in the right spot to entice the trout to take the fly and the hook. Even reeling it in is a mission.

A lot of fly-fishing involves the art of deception.

As fly-fishing enthusiast and Stuff visual journalist Martin de Ruyter says, you just need 427 things to go right. “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it,” he says.

I’m not naturally practical and have a dodgy knee, so it was with low expectations that I wobbled over limestone rocks to one of Zane’s favourite spots on the river. I only fell once getting to the riverbank, but at other times I resembled a drunk trying to keep his balance and dignity.

“Don’t write yourself off,” Zane says with a smile. “Miracles can happen.”

I think Zane has bitten off more than even he can chew. “The main thing is to have fun,” he says, lowering both our expectations.

But he didn’t get to be one of the country’s best guides, mingling with movie stars here and in Colorado, without having a laser focus on results.

He casually clambers into the river and hooks two smallish brown trout in quick succession, one leaping out of the water, all speckled and furious, and running off downstream. He lets it tire itself out and gives me the honour of reeling them in. “Keep your hand off the reel, keep the rod bent, let it run, then wind in a few times when it stops.”

I’m dubious about Martin and Zane’s supposed ritual of kissing the netted trout as a mark of gratitude and respect, but the adrenalin sees me pucker up anyway. The trout looks indignant at this insult added to injury.

Now is the time for purists to look away. We are using a different technique today, one Zane thinks will improve my admittedly small chances of pulling off a miracle.

The traditional fly-fishing cast is something that makes a golf swing look easy. It involves a rigid see-sawing of the forearm, back and forth, back and forth, to load the rod and get the light line into a tight loop, so it can be sent upstream of a lurking trout with enough distance that the sharp-eyed fish can’t see you.

On the end of the line there is a hook concealed in an artificial fly, an art form in itself, mimicking the insects that float down the river ready to become trout snacks. Choosing the right fly for the right river, even for the right time of day, is another piece of the puzzle.

Flies that float on the top are called dry flies (even though they get wet). Today we are using a technique called euro nymphing, with flies that sink down in the river, mimicking water nymphs, which are also highly sought after on the trout menu.

The euro nymph cast is easier because you don’t have to worry about holding line loose in one hand while you cast with the other.

Zane explains it’s like a fencer, making the first move in a duel. I’ve never tried fencing either. My first attempts are as elegant and wooden as a barrier arm. The line goes virtually nowhere.

I make small improvements, but then you have more to worry about. You have to keep the rod at an angle ahead of the sunken nymph as it drifts with the current. There’s a brightly coloured indicator on the line that should be kept just above the surface of the water, so the nymph travels along the river bed.

We go to a wider stretch of the Motueka, near a picturesque bridge, fringed by willows.

I cast and cast again. Angle, tension, drift, indicator. I’m so focused on this I forget what the actual end result could be. There is an aforementioned tug.

I’m so surprised I forget about the upward flick you need to get the hook embedded. The trout gets away.

It’s called a strike. I strike out.

But I’m getting more into the groove. I visualise a fencer; I say to myself “en garde” as I point the rod at an imaginary foe. The line arcs out, more or less where it’s supposed to go. I’m ready next time when I feel the strike, I lift upward, the hook sticks and I have a brown trout on the end of the line.

It runs away downstream. I let it go, then reel in. Zane scoops it into the net; and there it is, my first trout. Not the biggest specimen but I’m stoked at the beauty of it, wet and shiny brown along the top, black dots on its sides.

The barbless hook comes out easily, and I resist the urge for another kiss before it swims away. I imagine it will be mercilessly mocked by the other trout for being caught by such a novice.

I feel a little more confident now, but that doesn’t go a long way in fly-fishing. In the afternoon we go to another spot, reached through a patch of native bush. The sun has come out, turning the river a brighter green.

Across the far side I see trout breaking the surface, a beautiful sight, known as rising. The warmth has brought out one of their favourite treats, passion vine hoppers, and they are oblivious to our approach a few metres away as they gorge.

I try the traditional cast, but my loops are as loose as a goose. The line collapses into the water far from the trouts’ feeding ground. Zane steps up and sends the fly zipping to the right spot, just upstream, and bang, he has a good-sized brown leaping into the sunshine.

What makes a good fly-fisher? “Practice,” he says. “Lots of practice”.

Meg echoes the sentiment, but at four months she already has the basic technique to catch brown and rainbow trout in Nelson and Marlborough rivers, known as some of the hardest in the country for fly-fishing.

“It’s a beautiful sport,” she says. “So much is about skill, not luck. It’s such a rush when you get that strike and bring the fish in.”

Her only disappointment is that there aren’t more women, especially younger women, encouraged to take up the traditionally male pastime. The 33-year-old has yet to meet a woman angler on her trips.

“It would be nice to have a focus to get more women involved because it’s so awesome and builds so much confidence with things like bush skills and river crossings.”

I see the attraction, the potential addiction, and even if I don’t have the execution there’s the chance of a miracle. At the least, being out in the middle of a lazily flowing river is a calming, reflective business – when you’re not cursing your casts or the ones that got away.

• A good place for novices to learn the ins and outs of fly-fishing is the Nelson Trout Fishing Club. They meet monthly and have information at https://www.nelsontroutfishingclub.com/ or on their Facebook page.