National News & Information > Features April 2008

At the end are the rainbows by Hugh Creasy

The owl’s call came on a soft, cold breeze blowing down the valley from the open tops where the first frosts silvered the ground between clumps of tussock. It was a time of eerie twilight, and the sound of the owl could easily be missed among the cacophony of birdsong as flights of starling and sparrow swung through the trees to settle for the night. The noise rose from the plain below us, joined with engine noise from distant roads and a tractor pulling discs to break the heavy soil. They were far away, but even the sound of a car door closing and murmuring voices travelled to us as we prepared a camp for the night. We saw the owl in bobbing flight, blunt-headed and purposeful. It perched on a fencepost not far away and called again.

We were intent on making camp before darkness fell, and with a clatter of billies and pans, we missed the answering call. The Coleman stove flared into life, sending out an offensive stench of white spirit, before vigorous pumping steadied the flame and pressure built to a steady roar. There was a billy of boiling water for potato flakes, and an onion was diced to add flavour to sausages browning in a frypan.  At any other time the smell of heated  fat would be repellent, but after a muscle-stretching climb into the foothills, clambering through freezing rivers in pursuit of trout, the smell whetted our appetites to an extraordinary degree. The onions browned in the fat when the sausages were nearly ready and at the last moment a quick stir of potato flakes in the billy of boiling water had us tucking in to a delicious, artery-clogging meal. It is extraordinary how  the body craves fat after a time of maximum exertion.

We kept the stove hissing softly for the heat it gave out. A fire was out of the question. The dry hills had not seen any appreciable rain for months. Stock had been taken away, leaving the hills with a coating of dry stalks and desiccated droppings. Colder weather, though, brought night mists and heavy dew. The hills would green again if there was enough moisture on them before winter set in. The river was low, but the pools held fish, and where it spread over gravel there were signs of redds being made. These early spawners were probably doomed to failure, because the main spawning run would come in June when river levels rose and allowed the fish downstream access to the best spawning water.

In the smaller pools we caught smaller fish, and as we moved upstream the valley narrowed and the pools stretched into long ribbons of water, joined by steeper riffles and runs, black with weedy growth.  We came to a pool, long and deep, and overhung with matagouri, guaranteed to entangle line and leader, if a cast was made.

We used the matagouri for cover, and approached close to the water. There were bullies working the shallows and steeper banks, darting about in territorial battles that defined their tiny universe. Water boatmen paddled a shallow shelf that fell away into deep water. A shadow moved in the depths, a great tail moving from side to side, rising slowly as it came into view. It was a big fish, with a scarred head, mouth gulping water and gills showing red as water was expelled.

It came to the surface, its pale mouth gaped and an invisible insect was taken with an audible slurp. It was a jack fish, with an extended kipe – an ugly head, yet beautiful in its savage form.  It turned to take another insect, creating rings on the surface, then another, but we could not see any insects rising, nor any falling to the water.  The activity slowed, stopped and the fish showed a flash of spotted tail above the surface as it turned once more to deep water and disappeared.

No one was fool enough to try a cast to the pool, and we moved on, upstream, to easier prey.

Tomorrow we would climb higher, out of the catchment and into another. We would travel through weird forests of dracophyllum, over treacherous swards of carpet grass, dodging spears of wild Spaniards and we would spend the evening picking bidibidi seeds from our socks and clothes, but the rewards would be wild fish in wild water, before we descended to farms, fields and  fences on the other side.

Conversation died as the last of the white spirit burned away in the stove and we prepared for bed. A skein of Canada geese flew by in the darkness, honking softly as they sought a roosting place high on the mountainside.

In a few days there would be no more fishing in these hills. It was season’s end and the paradise shelducks and mallards we had put off the water in our journey would be the target of hunter’s guns. There would be a spawning run in the river, because the rains would come, as they always have.

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