• TOP TO BOTTOM • Morning camp tea along the Rangitikei River provides rejuvenation for Kelli Dotson. Mere yards away, a tributary full of hefty rainbows are beginning to jostle for position as emerging mayflies greet the warmth of the sun penetrating a thick beech forest canopy. Photo: Robert Dotson Six days of early season backcountry flyfishing left Taupo, NZ, guide Mao Bradley with a missing pant leg and blown-out shirt. Fellow kiwi Sean Andrews joined him for some “log rest” therapy. Blown-out rivers, snow squalls and grabby lawyer’s bush days led to eager 4-to 9-pound trout accessible in only one way: on foot. Photo: Robert Dotson Binary decision for Jesse Dotson: Either swim 60 yards upriver or do a rope crossing on the cliff face with guide Sean Andrews. To reach seldom-fished water on New Zealand’s North Island often requires a willingness to gut it out—and a dose of youth. Photo: Robert Dotson orry mate, working that weekend now.” “My wife’s folks just called; they’re coming to stay.” “Daughter’s got a surfing tournament, no can do.” Six years had passed since my New Zealand ar-rival and I’d been keen to tackle a multiday back-country trip ever since touching down on Kiwi soil. I’d gotten close a couple times with dates set with friends but, as those dates approached, replies to my messages slowed, a sense of foreboding took hold, and then came the excuses. New Zealand’s backcountry might not have griz-zlies but every year five people who venture into it don’t return, another 4,000 are injured and over 500 rescues are triggered. Underestimating terrain and changeable weather patterns are major causes and, as such, carrying locator beacons and buddying-up wherever possible are recommended practices. I’m happy to play by the rules but this was becom-ing faintly ridiculous. In those same six years I’d com-pleted an international move, gotten a job, bought a house, divorced, changed careers, gotten engaged and become a dad, but somehow the less-than-monumen-tal task of organizing a couple of nights camping and fishing had proven frustratingly elusive. I was ponder-ing this, and resolving to make more reliable friends, as I made the long drive south from my home in the Bay of Plenty past the acclaimed fisheries of Rotorua and Taupo, over the world-famous Tongariro River, and onward into the lower North Island. Say “New Zealand backcountry fishing” and most people will think of the South Island, but I’d been told the North Island backcountry, though less celebrated, was its equal in many ways. Keen to find out, I was on my way to rendezvous with friend and guide Johnny Gummer of Altitude Fly Fishing, who thankfully is more serious about keeping his fishing dates. A quick vehicle drop-and-swap, another hour’s drive deeper into the back of beyond, followed by a leisurely 45-minute hike, and we were there, dump-ing our backpacks with satisfying thuds onto the banks of a pristine wilderness river, blissfully out of “S cell phone range. If I didn’t actually sigh, stretch my arms out and say, “This is the life,” the sentiment was there all the same. We found a small grassy flat a few yards above the rushing river and set up camp in the protective embrace of a crescent of manuka bushes. In short time the late-afternoon shadows lengthened to twi-light and then to the all-enveloping blackness you only get when you’re distant from civilization. We lay there, legs hooked over the bank edge, heads rested on backpacks, shooting the breeze about life and fishing. A former competition fisherman, Johnny had rep-resented New Zealand on numerous occasions and relayed tales of brutal days on the lakes at the 2019 World Fly Fishing Championship in Tasmania, with plummeting temperatures and howling winds driv-ing sleety rain into the bodies of the best flyfisher-men on the planet as they battled to find fish. As we chatted, we gazed up at an undiluted, unpolluted night sky crammed with stars. It was like sitting in the cinema front row too close to the screen. With so much to process you’re forced to absorb it in sec-tions, scanning back and forth, eyes moving slowly across the heavens. Beneath us the water rushed ever onward, whilst a morepork—a small owl—called plaintively in the distance. Condensation dripped from the tent guides and my breath formed in clouds before me as I awoke the next morning. Summer it might have been but it still got cold out here overnight. A looming date with some big trout had added an unspoken urgency to maneuvers as Johnny did the honors with a hearty bacon-and-egg breakfast, cooked atop a bleached-out tree trunk brought down in a previous flood. We packed camp and headed out, making our way upriver with the sun illuminating the ridgelines. As it rose higher, the hillside shadows retreated and the rich greens of the beech forest canopy and punga palms revealed themselves. The sun warmed the valley and it came alive with the wonderful whirring song of cicadas. Dry fly time. 072 NEW ZEALAND
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 15.4: Page 70
