By jove! What a romp The Rod had in the River Dochart last summer, frolicking through the bucolic landscape in pursuit of the smallest trout known to man. It should come as no surprise that his next adventure would be literally the opposite in every way: on the opposite side of the world, chasing massive trout, in a truly epic and severe landscape! Behold, blood-knot brothers of the line, for it is nothing less than Lake Coleridge, New Zealand!
Harper River mouth
The Rod and his prodigious brother Haas saw that the (normally massive) nor'-wester winds were lying low, and took the opportunity to spend a couple of days chasing massive trout, on the massive lake, in the massive landscapes of the North Canterbury High Country.
Map of Lake Coleridge with locations marked in purple
Day One
Their first stop was the Ryton river mouth (marked 1 in the map above), where disappointingly the river was but a trickle. But, nonetheless, The Rod did mostly catch a massively small salmon on a hare's ear nymph (it wiggled off at the last)
Ryton River mouth
The winds were picking up and they weren't catching anything more substantial, so they moved on to the Harper River mouth (2) which also produce a massive lack of success. Starting to worry that the legends of Lake Coleridge might be the more mythy types of legend, they went slightly further west to the Oakden Canal mouth (3) ... and lo'!!, The Rod caught a lovely rainbow trout on the first cast, using a Mrs Simpson fly!
Massive rainbow being played...
... and displayed
This was by far the biggest trout that The Rod had caught on the fly in the wild, and being a trout of the wild and feisty variety, took quite a bit of playing to bring in; running several times back out towards the lake and making good work of the drag control.
Once the formalities were concluded The Rod and Haas continued fishing the area for a bit but nothing more was forthcoming from the darkening waters. They drove back to the wonderful Benlea Cottage and dined on the fruits of their labours; trout, instant noodles and fine southern ale.
Buldak "*ss burner" noodles, trout and ale
Day Two
The next morning they woke reasonably early in order to catch the morning action at the Harper mouth again. It is said that most fish are caught on Lake Coleridge in the first couple of hours' of daylight. The Rod caught a lively rainbow trout on the first cast with a spinner
"Walk it out"
Trout being gently returned by fisherman with great hubris expecting to catch many more.
The next couple of hours produced nothing further, so they went back to the Oakden canal mouth which also produced nothing, apart from an enlightening conversation with a Czech fisherman who had caught a 7lb brown trout in the area a couple of days' previously.
Oakden canal mouth
The wind was then starting to pick up and get stronger, which wasn't a lot of fun for fly fishing. After a couple of fruitless casts with the spinner at the top of the canal they headed back south.
This looks nice, but it wasn't
At this point they thought they would try "one last spot", which from the map looked like it would be sheltered from the wind. As luck would have it, it was and it delivered the most productive couple of hours' fishing in The Rod's illustrious history, albeit with the spinner due to lack of back cast.
Haas with a lovely lake trout
The Rod with a lovely brown jack
One rainbow got away by bending the hook open!
The Tasmanian lure can move very erratically in the water if pulled too fast, and The Rod caught this (possibly somewhat uncoordinated) lake trout by surprise, hooking the trout in the dorsal fin when the trout had presumably taken a swipe at the hook with its mouth. The dorsal fin is very tough, and the hook was well attached, so the trout ran and The Rod had the strangest time pulling the trout sideways out of the water. He honestly thought he'd caught a whale at first; the trout was able to run rather like a dog on a very long leash and so it took quite a while to coax it out of the water so that it could be quickly photographed, detached and returned.
A lake trout, foul hooked on the dorsal fin. "Let's go for a walk".
The Rod "holding the leash"
The Rod and his dog
That evening The Rod and Haas retired to Benlea cottage early for some celebtratory trout, noodles and ale and The Meaning of Liff.
Day Three
The nor'wester was really picking up so The Rod and Haas headed back towards civilisation, stopping briefly at the Rakaia Gorge bridge for some fruitless but scenic stunt-casting in strong winds.
The Rakaia 1
The Rakaia 2
All in all a very fulfilling trip. Lake Coleridge is highly recommended for a fishing getaway, just be sure to check the weather.
