Flying High

The Makarora Valley lies north of the township of Wanaka in New Zealand’s South Island. Hemmed in by Mt Aspiring National Park to the west and a large sweep of Otago to the east, the valley is typical of many in the region — wide, braided and stunningly beautiful. Our base for the next three days was Cedar Lodge, a true ‘helifishing only’ operation.

Chris Daughters, the new owner, took over from Dick Fraser who started Cedar Lodge over three decades ago. Chris and his wife Shauna have viewed the lodge and fishing operations with ‘fresh eyes’, adding their own style and approach to a very successful base.

The Pilot

Sharon and I waited on the lodge’s deck for our chopper to arrive. From a distance it looked like a large metallic bug, zig-zagging a course between the mountain peaks. It even made a noise like a giant cicada, the pitch changing with each turn until finally beating the air before landing on the lodge’s helipad. I ducked my head, just like they all do on TV and scrambled onto the buzzing insect. From the front bubble the ground disappeared before I could catch my breath and we were on our way — a magic carpet ride to a distant valley.

Dion, our pilot, was your typical Kiwi outdoorsman. An accomplished fly-fishing guide and keen hunter, he knew every backcountry valley and each river and stream within. He also seemed to have some sort of mental GPS, allowing him to sniff out all those ‘wee’ creeks that seemed to pour out of nowhere. Over time the lodge guides would have fished every creek and stream, no matter where it is, allowing them to work out the true treasures and build a knowledge base which is comprehensive and far reaching. It’s important to know that not every stream contains trout and other waters have beats which are devoid of them. Having a pilot who knows and understands the trout and their environment is a crucial part of the operation.

I watched the shadow of the chopper flicker across the mountainside as we zoomed towards the summit. Dion explained that we hugged the mountainside for a reason — to make use of the thermals generated from the warming rock, giving the additional lift needed to tip us over the top of the divide and into the West Coast headwater streams beyond. As we topped the summit the mountain vanished and the valley floor loomed thousands of feet below. It felt like we had stepped off a high-rise building. Spectacular stuff.

The Fishing

Mist stalled in the valley and clung to the forests as if the world was created overnight. The water was mouthwash blue in the deeper pools and clear as the air, but the light was a difficult silver mirror where I could only see reflections of beech and fern.

Chris, the lodge owner and our guide for the day, seemed to have little trouble picking out the smudges and shapes that eventually turned into trout. It was a case of Chris staying high and me keeping low. Whenever he saw a fish he would call the shots and I would try to make them.

It sounds straightforward, but what you get to see down low isn’t the same as you see up high, so it was challenging fishing for the first hour or so.

The first trout came from a log-jam. A big brown sat on the cushion of water in front of the tangle, I popped a dry on its nose and the trout came up and ate it. That was the easy bit, landing the fish wasn’t. Strong and heavy the brown took all my effort and every molecule of the six-pound tippet to stop it getting back to the jam. Pulling it away from the logs made the fish charge about erratically, the rod close to exploding and the line singing as it sliced water like Zorro’s sword. Chris scooped out the fish after an epic struggle and I was grateful for his oversized net!

This is real dry fly territory. The guides will always tie on a dry as the first option. If you get a refusal a smaller fly and different pattern is used, but it’s still a dry. Only if you get a second look and no eat do you go to the nymph. This approach is used from the start of the season until the closing day and it works — ninety percent of the trout we caught were on dries and big patterns at that! It was great to see a big trout move off the bottom, nose the fly and chomp it down.

My biggest issue was casting too short. Trying to ‘feel’ my way to the right length was not the way to go. It’s easy to get ‘buck fever’ when you’re casting to a six-pound wild fish that’s feeding assertively. You get time to think, and sometimes that’s not a good thing! In the end it boils down to confidence. Being bold and a tad more aggressive in making the shot gets the fly where the fish is going to see it, and that’s what you want. A fly landing on the fish’s tail only gets them ‘twitchy’, which is not good. If a trout turns tail to take then this can compromise the hook set. As I kept being told: make the first shot count!

Whilst most of the fishing is to sighted fish, searching the water can be an exciting and practical way to fish. Even the best eyes cannot see everything in deep shaded water, so prospecting the bubble lines and flows with a big dry can be just as rewarding, dropping flies into pockets and rocky crevices always imagining a snout poking through. The guides will let you know where they can and can’t see, and get you to cover the water where their vision is compromised. It’s a very efficient approach and the angler gets some real surprises along the way as trout appear out of the shadows to snaffle the fly.

The Guides

Paul is head guide at the lodge, an expat Scotsman and lots of fun to fish with. He has lived in NZ for well over a decade and spent many of those as a true ‘trout bum’ fishing every day of the season, scratching out a living the best way he could. Today it was the ‘Aussies’ turn to get some of his attention and he soon had me casting to trout and bouncing over boulders the size of cars.

We headed up a sidestream that was fed by glacial runoff. The flow was crystal clear and the water cold as ice. We wet waded for the freedom it allowed but you certainly came to life if you went too deep!

I hooked and dropped a fish straight up. “Hey mate don’t worry, it only looked nine pounds,” was Paul’s call. I looked up and he was straight-faced but broke into a huge grin – we both laughed. We fished on, dropping back into the main river, and had a ball catching some, losing some and taking in the beauty of the environment. It was a great day.

We fished with Chris on two days. As well as being the owner he is one of the guides, and a very good one at that. He has fished in New Zealand every summer for the last couple of decades and has the place wired. On one rainbow-only stream he spotted a cracking fish feeding heavily, then talked me into position so I could make the cast, and I ended up hooking and landing one of the best trout of the trip, maybe my life!

The Chopper

Chris wanted a point of difference at Cedar so purchased the chopper from Dick Fraser, allowing him the control and flexibility to fly anglers in and out of some pretty spectacular country. If a catchment is blown out by weather then there are other valleys available, and it gives streams a chance to be ‘rested’ for longer periods. West Coast streams are now an option, so too the wide braided rivers of the Makarora region, and there are several smaller creeks that flow through tussock country all within flying time.

It would be a mistake to assume that the chopper means less walking. Sure it gives you a great head start but where you begin and finish fishing can be many kilometres apart. Some days we walked close to ten kilometres, other days less. This is all to do with the style of fishing more than anything else. If there are stretches of water with no fish it means more walking. If the water is complex and there are more fish it means less. Of course if an angler has mobility issues then the chopper is a real advantage in that you can move about in the aircraft from spot to spot.

Whilst you can get to some faraway places the fishing is still typically New Zealand — large spooky trout that are demanding and difficult to fool and fight to the brink. Everything gets tested. The thought that you might get to a river full of naive trout is unrealistic (thankfully) and all waters are public, though we never saw any footprints apart from deer. And then there is the sheer thrill of flying in a helicopter — it’s simply an exhilarating experience!

The Kit

This is not a hatch driven fishery like the Mataura. This is a stalking and sight fishing proposition where fish are opportunistic because they need to be. Whilst we came across rising trout it wasn’t to a hatch as such, so flies tended to be the usual suspects for this kind of fishing. Chunky deer and foam bodied ‘cicada-esque’ patterns, Adams, Wulffs, Blowflies and a selection of nymphs like Hare and Copper, Pheasant Tail, Copper John and others, all with varying weight. The guides work it all out and are quick to change the fly if needed.

I fished with my usual sight fishing rod, a 9-foot 5-weight, which was put through its paces. I was never taken to the backing, but that was because I chased the fish down and tried to keep some semblance of control — it didn’t always come off. Leaders were longish, around 16 feet, tippets of 6 lb seemed about right, but these fish were incredibly strong so whenever I could get away with it I went heavier.

We wet waded every day and I would consider leaving my waders at home next time as you tend not to spend a lot of time in the water. Mostly you get wet from crossing or trying to reach a fish in a big pool. Having said that, the water is very cold, so you may need to weigh up the pros and cons yourself.

The fly fishing in the region was spectacular, the scenery sublime and the lodge beautiful. The entire experience of flying in and out of remote valleys and fishing waters where there was no visible sign of human activity was overwhelming. The sense of the wildness, pristine waters and difficult trout marry into an experience that makes fly fishing here so special.

For more information about Cedar Lodge and its heli-fishing packages visit cedarlodge.net