Pool below, I was with Marc, watching him hook and fight an equally magnificent rainbow. He ran up to get his rod, ran back, and hooked the six-pound trout with his first cast. He brought it down, dressed and hung it inside a large mesh meat safe, then, going down to the creek to wash his hands, he spotted a fish rising in the camp pool. That first night in the headwaters of the Rangitikei, one of the best and most remote of the North Island backcountry rivers, after we set up a camp of three tents and a large « living room » tarp in the forest clearing, Michel Dedual trotted off for an evening hunt and only ten minutes up the creek bagged a decent-sized sika deer. To further compound the aggravation, your companions are having the time of their lives. On the river, you tangle up repeatedly, spook every trout you see, hook yourself with your own fly, and naturally it is one of only a handful in the fly box that have not been de-barbed. Soon enough you’re convinced it’s probably both, because things get worse from there. It’s not even lunchtime yet. » And you, too, wonder: what the hell is going on? Is this me or some nasty taniwha whose home ground I have just entered and who clearly does not want me here? We all like a good drink but this is ridiculous. They are probably thinking: « What’s up with him? Your companions help you up and give you puzzled looks.
#Chunky ten thumbs full
You want to break the fall with your hands, but they are full of camping gear and heavy supermarket bags, and your backpack, well, it’s just big and inert enough to prevent a recovery. You promptly trump this with another act, stepping on the loose end of a vine with one foot, with the other tripping over the noose you’ve thus created. Have you ever been on a fishing trip, long planned and much anticipated, where nothing seems to go right for you? You arse up just stepping out of the helicopter and give yourself a good one on the shin, a bruise that over the following days blossoms plump and purple like a Baccara rose. SIT DOWN & HOWLĪn extract from The Trout Diaries by Derek Grzelewski
Click on the article's images to see it at readable size.
0 kommentar(er)
