The Cast

After about a week of fishing the South Island Tyler had arranged to hire Chris Doer, one of the better guides in New Zealand. On the day we fished with Chris I let him know that my high mileage was causing me to slow down, I don't fish with the skill Tyler has and my wading is a bit wobbly. So after we hit the Oreti River, famous for its big browns, Chris began to stalk the banks looking for trout. It is known as "sight fishing" and a mystical art as only guides can see fish while we mortals sometimes glimpse gray smudges, often nothing at all.
He began fishing with Ty while I followed. After a half hour or so he had me cast across a fishless run just to evaluate my casting skills, to determine how much work he had ahead putting me on a fish. (I would guess I was in the D+/C- range).
Soon we found a little backwater eddy pond that sometimes held fish so we had to crawl up to it on our bellies like Green Berets, and sure enough a couple of big bruisers were cruising around and he had Tyler blindly lay out a nice cast that the fish refused. Too bad, on we fished.
Around noon we sighted the first real fish out in the river in a catchable position. Chris lined up Tyler and had him lay out a gentle cast that the fish refused. He tied on a new fly the fish ignored. Next he tried a new angle, then a bigger fly, a smaller fly, a bright fly a dark fly and after about 30 minutes of casting Chris determined the fish was just not in the mood for lunch. But we were.
We walked about 20 feet up the bank to the lunch beach when Chris spotted another gray smudge that he determined was a fish, but now Ty was tired and it was the old man's turn. He tied on a size 14 bead headed pheasant tail (yeah, I don't really know what the hell that is either) and told me to stand ankle deep in the river, face straight up it and cast the fly (a nymph) beyond the fish but not to cast so far that my dark fly line scared the fish (yeah, right).
So I stepped into the river, began to whip my rod back and forth and at some point thought I had enough line out so I let 'er fly. The nymph landed beyond the fish and began to drift right back over it, it made just a slight movement (did he eat it?) and my little white indicator jiggled a bit so I lifted my rod. WHAM! He was on and came racing down river as I frantically stripped in the line while Tyler hollered and hooted as if he'd been shot. What a great father/son moment. It wasn't a brute by Oreti standards but it tipped 6 pounds when Chris weighed it.
So that was it. One Cast.
After lunch Ty and Chris spotted several nice browns and cast and cast. No luck. I just followed along enjoying the splendor of New Zealand and appreciating how lucky I was to be here with my son, but I never fished again that day. One cast. Next day we all went back. No fish. I think Ty and Grant tried another day too. Notta.
Talk about lucky. I made only one cast the entire day. Sometimes the fishing gods just smile down on you.

(That's the fish with Ty and me down below in the previous post. Sorry we never got a shot that did it justice.)