NTFC Newsletter_February 2022

CLUB CONTACTS Executive Don Clementson 027 437 6019 [email protected] Barry Howell 544 3069 [email protected] President: Jean Willis 547 6432 [email protected] Past President Secretary Chris Clenshaw 544 5276 [email protected] Treasurer Committee Richard Breakspear 541 9050 [email protected] Kevin Nansett 545 2007 [email protected] Peter Lawler 548 9753 [email protected] Tony Entwistle 544 4565 [email protected] James Macdonald 540 3520 [email protected] Neil Anderson 539 4941 [email protected] Allan Ballard 544 1735 [email protected] Web Master Peter Lawler 548 9753 [email protected] 547 1197 [email protected] Club Librarian Cameron Reid 545 2007 [email protected] 027 437 6019 [email protected] Trophy Master Kevin Nansett Club Sponsorship Don Clementson Club Speakers Committee Members Club Night Tea/Coffee Committee Members Newsletter Editor James Macdonald 540 3520 [email protected] Life Members 1982 Chappie Chapman 2007 Jean Willis 2018 Richard Boyden 2021 Tony Entwistle Past Presidents 06-08 Lester Higgins 08-09 Ross Walker 09-11 Dennis Ealam 03-06 Richard Boyden 13-15 Tony Entwistle 15-17 Maree Peter 17-18 Michael Stevenson 11-13 Ray Day 19-20 Barry Howell The Nelson Trout Fishing Club Meets once a month at: Fish and Game Offices, 66 Champion Road, Richmond Normally the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 7:00pm Please phone (Don’s phone #) if unsure Any views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the committee, club or editor Webpage: www.nelsontroutfishingclub.com Follow us on Facebook Cover Photo: Gebhard Krewett with a lovely brownie caught in mid-January 2022

President’s Flyline Nelson Trout Fishing & Craft Beer Club February 2022 Greetings Club Members. Welcome to the February Newsletter. In the last couple of months the local fishing has been a mixed bag. Some rivers were just coming down to a perfect level while others were just a little low. Then the rain came and dealt to that. Fish numbers in most rivers are down because of the floods last year. In some rivers there seems to be a pattern of bunches of fish in pockets then none for a while. I have had 8 fish out of a small run of 30 metres then only the odd one for the rest of the day. In the end it is all down to Jonny-on-the-spot and leg work. We are holding Junior Fishing Clinics in March. The first will be behind Garin College opposite the velodrome om March 6th. It will be a casting clinic. Then on March 27th we will be at the fishing ponds at Challis Island. The next Club meeting Tom Kroos will be speaking on life in local streams. Not to be missed. (He will not be answering any questions about his latest movie!) Craft Beer Section This time of the year fishing for kingfish is a great alternative so here is some great beer for this. If you want to go for the larger fish on a flyrod try the BILLFISH APA, guaranteed to work. The area that you fish is a white sand beach. It makes it easier to spot the fish so a little WHITE SAND WHITE IPA is what is needed.

When searching for the kingfish out on the beach flats sunshine is needed to spot them so to keep ahead of the clouds a CLOUDCHASER HAZY IPA is needed. After walking all day chasing kingfish a welcome MAGIC HOUR HAZY PALE ALE is compulsory for old people. Then followed by a PAVTASTIC STOUT for dessert. Don Clementson hard at work on his home workshop making some fly leader tying boards up Photo courtesy of Zane Mirfin NB. Meeting attendance is restricted to doubly vaccinated club members. Vaccine passports will be checked at the door.

Buy & Sell - No Buy & Sell this month





Originally published in New Zealand Outdoor, July 1953

Local Nelson / Marlborough Prospects Another fishing season underway and there are still a few trout around. I say a few because we had an unseasonably wet winter in the South Island with some real doozy floods that wreaked damage upon local waterways and fisheries. Yep, climate change is fully underway, and our local trout fishing club has been out and about assisting local farmers to sort out some of the mess after some epic floods. President of The Nelson Trout Fishing Club (www.nelsontroutfishingclub.com ), Don Clementson of Richmond, jokes that we are going to rename the club to the Nelson Trout Fishing & Craft Beer Club (see above) because we all might be spending a bit more time at the pub rather that flogging the rivers this season. It’s still too early to know the full extent of flood damage on trout numbers but it’s fair to say that the biggest flood event was unparalleled in recent human memory with wide-scale pummelling of the Nelson / Marlborough District and beyond. Guiding Industry Roundup Flood damage to fisheries is probably the least of the problems for the New Zealand fishing guiding industry at the moment. With the borders closed and no international anglers able to journey here, the whole tourism industry is in a parlous state. Many operators have gone into hibernation, shed costs and infrastructure, or just shut-up shop. The full economic effects of Covid-19 have yet to be felt but it sure will be interesting to see who or what emerges from the carnage and the ashes. Guiding was always a tough industry prone to economic down-cycles but Covid-19 and New Zealand’s response has arguably been the industry’s biggest hurdle yet. In my times of guiding since 1985, we’ve experienced the ’87 Share Market Crash, Gulf War, Y2K, 9/11, SARS, and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC 2008) among other economic hiccups, but the world has now changed. Like other guides, I’ll be out there guiding and teaching kiwi anglers over the summer (www.strikeadventure.com ), hoping like hell that the borders open soon before our NZ service economy totally collapses. Turangi Fishing – Euro Techniques Collie Taylor of Richmond kindly invited me to fish Turangi with him recently. South Islanders like us really love the central North Island rainbows and the winter / spring spawning runs for the variety and carnival atmosphere on the many famous rivers. This trip we concentrated on the ‘TT’ or Tauranga – Taupo River to the uninitiated. It was a quick trip with only two full days of fly fishing but what sport we had. Colin and his mate Hugh Sutherland of Paraparaumu, mainly fished with standard yarn indicators, lead shot, nymph bombs, and egg imitation glo-bugs, while I fished with 3wt euro nymphing gear. In the tough light of early morning and evening, the indicator rig worked best. But during the full light of day and after the water

had been disturbed by anglers, the euro nymphing technique proved full worth - fishing into tricky currents, deep slots, and tight against blackberry-covered banks. Rainbows running the rivers to spawn aren’t renowned for their intelligence but after being pounded regularly by anglers they soon wise-up and can become more difficult to catch. Euro nymphing can present flies without drag into trout lies that can be difficult to fish with an indicator rig. There were some easy catches at first with the euro-rig on fresh-run and older fish, but the trout weren’t totally stupid either. After a while I realised that many fish were spooking on my bright coloured euro sighter nylon in the clear water conditions, so I trimmed the bright tags, used smaller nymphs, and kept on catching. After lunch on the second full day of fishing I went full stealth mode in the clear stream and my catch-rate climbed exponentially. Fishing a Howard Croston Euro leader with ‘a French Accent’ (Howard’s words, not mine) with a black & white sighter made all the difference. Dropping the tippet diameter to 5x fluorocarbon material was a big breakthrough and this assisted with the drift, nymph depth, and fish takes. Interestingly on the 10’ ft 6’’, 3 weight Primal euro rod (see www.manictackleproject.com), it was virtually impossible to break a trout off on the strike or while fighting them, even on 5x tippet. Many trout were taken by sight fishing and by using a small single nymph to plip upstream and watch for the flash of white mouth or when the trout moved over to take the fly. Best Euro Nymphs on the TT I’m hardly an expert at fishing the TT but the best nymph patterns this trip were brighter flies tied with orange and silver tungsten beads on #12-14 barbless hooks. Some fish were shallow and some held in deep fast water so if I wasn’t tapping the stream bottom intermittently, it was time to tie on heavier flies or combinations of heavier nymphs with tungsten beads between 2.5 and 4.0mm. For fishing to sighted trout, it can be best to cast a single #14-16 tungsten beaded nymph for better accuracy and more control. Often, I would change to a smaller point fly and remove the dropper nymph before casting to a promising target. Most of us probably use flies that are too large and it is surprising how deep you can get with a small fly when using light tippet with no line drag. Howard Croston Euro Leader Howard Croston is a world champion UK fly fisherman and competition winner who really knows how to catch trout. Croston’s leader formula came from English magazine ‘Fly Fishing and Fly Tying’ Magazine (March 2018) and was developed by Croston over many years and many competitions. This leader works well either with a specialist euro nymph fly line or with a small diameter 3 or 4 weight standard fly line. I pretty much use the same length cast every time with about 30 cm of flyline left hanging out of the rod tip at all times. This stealth

leader casts well, and allows accurate placement of single nymphs and double rigs at close range. If visibility is tough then use some Skafars Neon Wax to wipe on the sighter-nylon for improved visibility. Leader Recipe: Butt 130cm (0.40mm) / 90cm (0.35mm) / 70cm (0.30mm) / 60cm (0.25mm) / 50cm (0.22mm / 2x) Black & White indicator nylon / tippet ring / 5x tippet material. The tapered section measures 4.0 metres (13.3ft) and when combined with a maximum tippet length of 190 cm gives a total Taupo legal leader length of just under 6 metres (or 19.6ft). Kereru Lodge & Fishing Guides - Yerex / Wood / Brennan We had a great stay at Kereru Lodge (www.flyfishingtauponz.com) or more particularly, Kereru Fishing Camp ably operated by top trout guide Steve Yerex of Taupo. With three units of self-contained chalet-style accommodation in a wilderness setting, independent angler guests are positioned less than 100m from the Parade Pool on the world famous Tauranga-Taupo River, near the southern end of Lake Taupo. This accommodation option is quite unique because it allows guests to fish the best water within an easy walk of camp while others have to walk up from the public carpark more than an hour away. The lodge is set on several acres of grounds, and is bordered by the river on one side, and plantation forest elsewhere, giving you a real sense of isolation. Vehicle access to Kereru is easy being only five minutes off the main North Island highway via a private road so you can easily access the other great local fishing rivers if you desire. We had a great time at Kereru, fishing by day and socialising by evening. The covered BBQ and fire pit area is a brilliant communal area and many great memories were created. Two of the special local Taupo / Turangi fishing guides Steve Yerex (www.flyfishingtauponz.com) and Dave Wood (www.lovetaupo.com/en/operators/dave-wood-first-cast-fly-fishing) are wonderful guys to spend time with and it was fabulous catching up and reminiscing about guiding days past. Steve and Dave came out on the river with us too, and one of the highlights of my fishing time at Kereru was catching six hot rainbows from the same small slot while demonstrating euro-nymphing to a curious Steve. I also very much enjoyed meeting fellow NZPFGA fishing guide Chris Brennan (www.chrisbrennanflyfishing.co.nz), inventor of the Tongariro Roll Cast. Chris was at Kereru guiding four top kiwi blokes onto their first trout fishing experience and we all had an epic night out with Chris insisting on feeding everyone smoked trout on crackers with cream cheese and prime sika backsteaks. A roaring campfire, song, laughter, and loud music were mandatory, and all washed down with fine ale and loads of good natured BS. Just the way any good fishing trip should be! Originally published in Trout Fisher, Issue 179, Summer 2021

A man, his partner and their dog by Gebhard Krewitt Often enough I am only with the good dog on the water. But last Sunday Natascha accompanied us. Work sharing: I caught the fish, Leica drove the fish into the landing net ... and Natascha made these cool pictures of us.



My Fishing Life – Allan Ballard My fishing career began on the Thames near Oxford, UK, when I was 4 years old. While my father and his friends fished, I was set up with a willow stick attached to two metres of nylon line with a hook baited with a worm. When the adults packed up for the day, I pulled the line out of the reeds to reveal a 10 cm Perch! When I was 10 years old, we moved to NZ and ended up in Tokoroa. My first trout fishing attempt was sitting on the bank of the local stream, spinning with a silver lure – about 2 metres from the rod tip ! This innovative method was unsuccessful. When I was at Tokoroa High School we used to fish 3 km downstream from a dairy factory. Everything instream was decorated with lumps of whey! Although this looked disgusting, it was a feast for the trout and eels. We caught trout to 5 kg and eels to 20kg on huhu grubs( illegal) Just married, Linda and I moved to Dunedin where I fished the Tomahawk Lagoon mostly unsuccessfully although it did improve my fly casting. We moved to Nelson in 1974 and after a dry year of unsuccessful fishing in the Motueka, I slowly picked up the arts of dry fly fishing and nymphing. The Motueka proved to be baffling for a novice but some simple techniques can bring success. Swinging a wet fly or small nymph across and down through the ripples is easy to do and often productive, as is spinfishing with Toby or a Veltic lure. Nelson is a paradise for troutfishers. All methods can be successful as you build up your knowledge and skills. The Nelson Trout Fishing Club is a great place to meet anglers that are willing to give helpful advice. I am still learning …………..

Allan with a rainbow from the Canals Jaws at the canals

Fishing Club Informal “Get Together” 19 January Photos courtesy of Gebhard Krewitt

Access to Rivers Riverbanks and riverbeds are often thought to be entirely publicly accessible and a term is frequently used as part of this expectation - the Queen’s Chain. The Queen’s Chain is a shorthand term for public land that exists alongside most waterways and the coast. However not all rivers and lakes, and not all the coast is bordered by public land. ‘The Queen’s Chain’ is not universal or unbroken. Some rivers have public land on one side but not on the other. Some have no public access on either side, and some have gaps in public access along portions of the river. So, for people who want to walk down, swim in or fish in rivers the answer is not always simple. If the river is owned by the Crown then you are generally free to stand in it. There is not an automatic right of public access. But, so long as your public access is not in conflict with some other Crown use (such as a hydroelectric dam), then the Crown doesn’t mind you getting your feet wet. But finding out who owns a river is not always simple. The best way to do so is to visit the Walking Access Commission’s online maps. If the relevant part of the river is entirely within a private land parcel, then it is probably private. If the river is designated as a ‘hydro area’ within the mapping system and is bounded on each side by public land, it is probably Crown-owned. Where a private land parcel borders a river that is not navigable, the owner of the land has what is called usque ad medium filum aquae (AMF) rights. That’s a complicated legal way of saying the landowner to the side of the river also has ownership of the adjoining riverbed to the midpoint of the river. This right is not the same as a complete right of ownership. But it does give the landowner the right to keep other people out. So, you would need to seek the permission of the adjoining landowner before you swam, fished or stood in that half of the river. Potentially you could stand in the other side of the river though. This situation becomes more complicated over time because rivers have a habit of moving, eroding one side, accreting on the other. Legal boundaries for land don’t generally move, but sometimes they do move to follow the course of a river. For instance, public esplanade strips, often 20m wide, that border a river will move with the river. But some other types of legal boundaries stay still even as the river accretes. For example, the bed of the lower reaches of the Whataroa River in South Westland is largely Crown land managed by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) and described as ‘hydro’. In parts, it is bordered by unformed legal road and in parts by public conservation land, both of which will allow for public access, but

these boundaries do not move. In some cases, the river has eroded into private land and there both the bank and the bed of the river are not accessible without permission from the landowner. In another example in a shallow creek near Hokitika, a query arose a few years ago about public access and it was found that the creek had eroded through the Crown land managed by LINZ, through the unformed legal road that followed the edge of the old mapped riverbed, and into the freehold land beyond on one bend, and into the private land on the other side at the next bend. Yes, it’s complicated! Fish & Game ( https://fishandgame.org.nz ) have made life easier, identifying key river access points, but have a look at our maps (https://maps.walkingaccess.govt.nz/OurMaps/ ) to find out more - they include angler access points - or get in touch and we’ll do our best to provide clarity about access for a specific site. By Inger Perkins, West Coast Regional Field Advisor Originally published in the Walking Access Website, 7 January 2022