You’ll likely recall the Boomtown Rats song “I don’t like Mondays,” however for some unknown reason Tuesdays is the day when things go awry. The Tuesday of Opening Day I awoke at 4am, piled out and put on layers of warm clothes, had a bit of brekkie, then had to move the Corolla, so I could get the boat out, so I could get to the Mazda. It was like that scene from The Castle movie “Oi Steve could you move the Camira, I need to get the Torana out, so I can get to the Commodore.” All this went on well before dawn and when I’d hooked on the boat, I had to spend an age with my phone torch trying to get the electrics plug attached to make the tail lights work. Was it an omen for the day? You’ll see as this tale unfolds….or unravels.
Headed up the valley around 5.40 and was passed by a series of vehicles rushing to the freezing works for their 6 o’clock start. It was still dark at the lake and I realised my change for the 5 dollar ramp fee was in the other car, durn, it’ll be 10 bucks next time. I prepared the boat for the water and the light gradually began to change as I completed this task, yet there was still nobody else at the ramp, so I was the only boat on the water while quietly chugging out past the 5 knot buoys.
I revved to full noise briefly then lifted the motor and got out the oars to sneak in around the edges and look for movement – any movement. Three and a half hours went by with nary a fin sighted and I became paranoid – “there’re no other boats out, so does everyone else know something I don’t?” But eee oop lad, there’s a rise out front of the boat and then it swirled again but stealthed off without nudging my fly. Good, if nothing else, I know there are trout still in the lake, one trout anyway.
The wildlife was quite active with the dawn chorus dominated by those noisy, strident plovers, punctuated with the occasional harsh rasp of a heron, while further away through the trees the high pitched, repetitive piping of kingfishers was audible. Then there were splatterings of black swan as they flapped and paddled furiously to get airborne, all this adding another dimension to the casting and rowing practice I was getting. I must have rowed a couple of kilometres as I moved along with a fly out the back in harling fashion, then stopped to cast in each likely looking spot. It was a still, grey old day with no wind and fortunately no rain either, but I never needed to remove any layers of clothing with the persistently low temperatures. The vast bulk of Mt Te Kinga appeared, then hid itself from time to time, as the mist and cloud slowly drifted through. The lake level was up, but it had been higher, evidenced by the water marks left behind on the reeds. It still allowed me to float up behind the trees and get into odd places I’d not visited for quite a while, but still there were no fish and I wasn’t even scaring any out of the shallows into fleeing with an associated bow wave. Paranoia strikes deep – where were they all.
Lunch was taken in a remote reach and this activity traditionally has been guaranteed to bring a fish around the moment you break out the sandwiches and coffee, but nah, zilch, nada, zero finned creatures appeared. After lunch I carried on a bit longer, then as the situation had not improved I pulled the plug, fizzing back to the ramp where I met a young guy also coming off the lake. He’d not spent a long time out there fishing, but had nothing to show for it either. He was a dairy farmer wanting a bit of time off the land and I remarked about how important fishing is for well-being and he responded something along the lines of “especially when you are looking after TWO farms.” We chatted about this and that and I got the feeling he enjoyed the social contact, talking with someone who was not a farmer, but had some empathy with their rural way of life. For me this again reinforced the way our piscatorial activities are good for mental health. Mind you my day out could have been seen as having a reverse effect in this regard, but I’m pleased to have had a yarn with someone from that rather vulnerable agrarian sector. The day was not completely wasted.
