Hadyn Olsen – 18/11/03
“Lake Otamangakau behind Turangi next to the central (North Island) mountains. is renowned for trophy trout.” That was what attracted Hadyn Olsen to join a trout fishing expedition. He shares his story.
“Why don’t you join us for opening day?” my brother Nils suggested. “We are off to Otamangakau.” There was a wisp of something intoxicating in his breath that I should have been wary of. The gleam in his eye should have warned me. But I let it ride.
It’s been a while since I have been trout fishing. Lost the interest after many years of being spoilt by fly-fishing in the Rotorua Lakes region. I hadn’t pulled the old rod out for ten years. I tried to remember why I liked fishing. I tried to find an excuse not to go.
“Otamanga – what?” I asked, “Where’s that?”
“Otamangakau. It’s behind Turangi next to the central (North Island) mountains. It’s renowned for trophy trout.” Nils said. That gleam was still there. I was hooked.
“Why not?” I thought. “I needed a good break and it’ll be fun to get together with my brother and two other men and get outdoors again.” Trophy trout – Oh Boy!!
Fishermen get a kind of romantic idea of opening day fishing. We see ourselves in the crisp morning air before a glassy inviting lake. We see beneath the surface of the water and spot hungry monsters waiting only for our lures. We envisage ourselves engaging them and fighting to the death. Their power versus our skill. We win. We always win – in the dream!
We arrived at the lake at 5 am. We were the only ones there. I wondered for a moment if that was a bad sign. For a fleeting pause I began to question what I was doing here on a freezing pitch black morning, going into a lake I had never even known before, in an open 12 foot boat. Wisdom had its last chance to move me. I stubbornly resisted.
We were here to catch fish. Our ply dinghy was polished, packed and perfect. Everything was right. There was a small presence of wind and a little rain.
“Perfect conditions!” pronounced Simon, the most experienced Lake Otamanagakau fisherman on board. We grunted in agreement. I remembered that my bed had been so warm and cosy only an hour before.
Chris was the only fisherman on board who had never caught a trout. We had joked that he was our virgin, and that he would be a good omen. We would be providing a sacrificial virgin to the lake and the lake would give up her bounty in return. It was a nice thought. After all everyone knows, the virgin fisherman always gets the first fish.
I asked the others to drop me off on the bank of an arm across the bay. I wanted to fly fish. I wasn’t interested in noisy motors and trawling. I wanted to enjoy the old rod and reel, the peace and the water. They took me across the lake to a spot guaranteed to catch fish. It would be just like old times. I was keen.
Then the first disaster happened. I thought I would have a few casts from the boat while we travelled to ‘the spot’ and suddenly found my reel collapsing in my hands. The vibration of the trip had loosened two very important screws in my reel! Damn! Do you know how small those things are? – I was gobsmacked! For the next ten minutes I searched the wooden floor of the boat for the screws with a flashlight in one hand – in the rain. Under my breath small bursts of anger were seeking to find expression like a jug just before boil. We hadn’t even started and it looked like I was finished!
Then, I saw them, at the bottom of the stern, glinting in the torchlight. I couldn’t believe it. There they were – wedged in the corner. Thank goodness the boat was clean! Nils always kept a tidy boat. You beauty!
I managed to get them and screw them back into my reel using a pocket knife as a screwdriver. Disaster over. Things were looking up. I remembered the old saying that obstacles were only an opportunity to prove one’s greatness. Murphy, that old dog had struck. But I had come back! I was sure it was going to be a great day.
You see fishing is a game where a man is pitted against everything. The elements, the fish, the equipment, each other! And most of all against bad luck – or Murphy’s Law as I call it. That’s why we love it – us men. Women may not understand this – it is primeval. It helps us prove our manhood. It is the testosterone rich soup every man is rooted in. I didn’t yet realize how much more manhood would have to be proven on this day. The lake was calling for much more.
They left me on the shore to cast my fly. As they putted off into the morning darkness I was left in fish heaven with the quiet stillness of the lake and the swishing sound of my hopeful casts. I was feeling good. The lake was beautiful. The trout were surely out there.
The Lake God of Otamangakau decided it was time to have some fun. From nowhere a 20 knot wind suddenly hit me in the face. My line snagged in a tree behind me. I tripped in the darkness filling one gumboot with water. I wondered if I was being punished for something evil I had done in my youth.
It was relentless and as morning broke the lake revealed itself as rocky and rough. I thought about how warm the bed felt and why I gave up fishing some years ago. But I battled on. I hooked a trout and then lost it. Just a slight ray of hope to a desperate soul.
Above the gusty sound of the wind I heard a strange creaking sound. Rrrrrrck dunk, Rrrrrrrck dunk. Then the sounds of swans beating their wings against the water. Slap slap slap slap slap – there it was again, Rrrrrrck dunk, Rrrrrck dunk. I looked around to see our boat slowly heading my way in dawning morning light. They were rowing it and there were only two of them were on board. I thought, “This looks strange.”
When they arrived at my little beach they explained that the motor had packed up and they had rowed back to the car where Nils had then taken it and driven back to Turangi to try and fix it. Oh boy!! It was only 8.15 am. What a turn of luck! Now what?
I joined them to take turns rowing back across the lake to the boat launching area to wait for Nils to return. We needed him to fix that motor. What else could we do?
It’s been a while since I have rowed a 12 ft wooden boat. Especially one where the seat is too low and the rowlocks are in the wrong place. It felt like rowing a drunken Hippopotamus up the Amazon. This was not my idea of a fun day at all. We took turns at the rowing and amused ourselves laughing at each other’s efforts to row in a straight line.
All the time a fishing line was trolling out from the stern. Now that’s what keenness is all about. That’s why I had travelled for three hours, spent $150 and been woken at 3.30 am in the morning. I remembered very clearly why I had given up fishing.
We rowed and rowed. Chris was the worst rower. The boat didn’t go in any semblance of a straight line with him at the controls. It actually pirouetted across the lake. People looking on didn’t know it but we had discovered a new way of trolling for trout. They were to be mesmerized by the boat’s crooked dance in the water. They were to be curious and would seek out our lure for fun. They would take pity on it and bite it just to keep our sagging spirits up. Nice thought. You think these things when you are rowing a wooden hippo across a freezing lake in the wind and rain. You wonder why people find life dull.
We finally made it to the boat ramp and pulled up to wait for Nils. We were frozen. No it was more than that. My body was adjusting to the next ice-age. It was in open revolt.
After half an hour Nils hadn’t turned up. After an hour he hadn’t turned up. The temperature had dropped to about 1 degree. We walked around to try and keep warm. We were depressed, angry, morose. We hunched quietly like poor desperate souls. And we had come here for fun – for FUN?!!!
There is something about standing on dry land at 10 am on opening day while the lake is teaming with trophy trout and it is so cold you don’t dare stop moving. It is not all that exciting. I felt some shame at my condition. Were we here to fish? Had we not come to pit ourselves? Was this the state of our manhood?
I announced that it would be better to die while trying to catch fish than to die while standing on the bank groaning. The men agreed. We got back in the boat and started fishing.
There is something about good fishermates. It warms your heart to see their courage. I wish it could have warmed more than my heart, but we were back. Look out fish!
With two lines now trailing from our wobbling stern we took to the water. Our spirits were buoyed when Simon got a bite. Then Chris also. I was rowing. Chris hooked a fish and after 15 minutes of playing it hard – with plenty of direction from Simon and me, he landed it. First fish of the day. Virgin luck! Simon reminded us that he had prophesied this earlier. He announced now it was his turn to catch the big one.
Then Simon hooked a trout. It was a beauty. It really was. Excitement rose as we peered into the lake waiting for it to rise and leap from the water. It didn’t. It wanted to stay down deep. The rod groaned with its weight. We groaned in the cold.
After ten minutes Simon and the fish were still bound in combat. The rod was bent like a staple and we rowed round and round to keep the line from getting snagged.
Then Murphy struck again. Murphy is always prepared to show fishermen that ‘whatever can go wrong will.’
A gale from the North hit us like a punch to the midriff. Now this was not just any kind of breeze. This wind has ice in it. It was aimed at 45 degrees. It cut through five layers of clothing without any respect whatsoever. It blew us like a paper cup toward the far shore where the weed was high.
“Don’t let it take us close to shore. We’ll lose the fish in the weed!” yelled Simon.
“You mean the fish is the priority here?” I heard my inner wise voice say?
“Row like you have never rowed before,” he yelled. Simon was good at giving commands. It was a whip he held, not a rod!
I began to put my forty four year old back into it. The toughest thing my back had done in the last six months was to sit in an office chair for six hours at a time. Every stretch was agony. My arms felt like they were going to explode. My hands were blocks of ice. I cursed my luck for deciding to be the rower.
We battled fish and lake and wind. Finally the lake gave up her bounty. We sat breathless looking at a terrific 8 lb rainbow trout gasping with us at the bottom of the boat. What a beautiful fish! It did feel good. We had done it.
Simon is generally not known for his humility. If Mohammed Ali were present I am sure he would have held back a few seconds just to listen to the crowing coming from our boat. It rose against the gale and echoed through the mountains. A whole year had been spent nurturing his ego for that one. I asked him to take a turn and burn up some energy on the oars. He did. It didn’t quiet him that much.
Then I hooked a fish. It got off. This was becoming a pattern. Chris hooked another and we landed a third 4 lb Rainbow. The wind died down a bit and a ray of sunshine peered through the dark clouds and took pity on us. Things were starting to look up.
We heard a yell from the distance and looked up to see waving at us. Terrific! When we got back to the boat ramp Nils told us he had not been able to fix the motor but he had managed to hire one. We ere overjoyed. He was also pretty upset because he had driven off without ensuring the tailgate on the trailer was tied down. It had come off on the road and smashed all the lights. He was more upset about this than the motor. We commiserated and cursed Murphy.
This was truly a day for the books all right. We didn’t spend much time thinking about the damage but got the new motor on. We were here to catch fish. We had done our time of pain – now it was time to plunder.
Nils then told us this motor had a small problem. The propeller had only one wing. I looked down at it. I was aghast. One wing! Does a bird fly with one wing? Sure enough the poor old motor was a sight for sore eyes. They charged us for a motor with one wing? I remembered why I gave up fishing.
The rest of the day was much the same as before. We caught two more trout and faced hail, sleet, driving wind and rain. We got so cold we couldn’t feel our fingers, hands, feet and even our faces a couple of times. But the keen NZ fisherman is a hardy breed. We stuck it out. ‘We knocked the bastard off!’
The day was not over yet though. When we finally pulled into our motel at 4 pm suffering from mild hypothermia and sleep deprivation, we decided the best cure was to get straight into the Motel’s hot pool with a stiff whiskey. A grand idea!
As we relaxed into the wonderful hot deep pool with no roof over it, the sky erupted. Murphy’s last attack. It began to hail. I have never seen hail like it. I have definitely never sat in hail like it. It hailed like a vengeful crowd before Caesar. It hailed so bad that we each ended up with small white skull caps on our heads. Our bodies were warm and the tops of our heads were frozen. It seemed an appropriate end to the day.
One good thing about it was that our glasses of whiskey ended up being whiskey on the rocks – or rock – as the hail collected in them. There is always something good in something bad. Such is life, I thought.
I remembered why I loved fishing.
