National News & Information > Features  February 2008

At the end are the rainbows by Hugh Creasy

The southerly blows cold, and overnight powdery mildew  appears on the grape vines and zuccini plants. 

The southerly is a damp wind, salt laden and cloying. It leaves clothes mouldy and another type of mildew coats leather with a green mask – all brought on wind currents from the south.

It’s not all bad, though. The cool air and its accompanying rain energise nature. Plants throw seed and fresh green shoots, insects take wing for mating flights and the lethargy of hot summer nights is shaken off as wild things make final preparations for winter survival. That means trout feed with renewed energy and enthusiastic carelessness, the last of the late-hatched ducklings takes to the air and a family of black-feathered young pukekos down the road by the stream put on a growth spurt that fattens them before the first frost.

Autumn is the season for harvest and preparation, and we’re busy in the kitchen, making pies to be frozen. We’re using the last of the game meats in the freezer, pheasant and swan, hare and rabbit, first cutting off all signs of freezer burn from the meat, then chopping the meat into small pieces, adding vegetables and herbs to make casseroles or stews. The stews go back to freezer until needed. They are then thawed and microwaved before going into their pastry casings  to be refrozen after cooking. There is nothing like a game pie in winter. The richness of the steam and the crisp pastry is comfort food for the chilled hunter and provides an opportunity to open bottles of powerful wine, oaked chardonnay and aged cabernet sauvignon, tannic pinot noir, made to mature in the bottle in a cool cellar for a decade or more.  There are root vegetables and pumpkin, heavy sauces and rich desserts, all designed to build strength and stave off cold. 

The whole of nature prepares for the coming of hardship, though we humans have managed to neutralise most of these by artificial means. When the weather is cold though, a little fat is a good thing.  In autumn nature is at its most abundant, fish are fattest and game birds are desperately feeding before the onset of winter storms. 
I must leave the kitchen and its glorious odours, and go to the river, to play my part in the harvest.  It is early evening and there have been mayfly hatches, small grey mayflies, and a few caddis. During the hottest days of summer there were only midges and sandflies skimming the water’s surface, but cold rain has rejuvenated the fauna of the river. A small Adams dry fly should be a near enough imitation.

My leader is light, and when a subsurface swirl leaves a dimple in the water, I cast the little Adams to midstream. It is ignored. All anglers know the chances of a trout even seeing your fly on the surface, when it is feeding in mid-water are remote. The fish must be persuaded that it is worth coming to the surface for a meal. So, I cast and cast again until my arm is tired with the effort. The fish is not persuaded.

It is twilight. I sit on the bank and contemplate the water.

The grass on the riverbank is head high where I’m sitting, and on a heavy ear of cocksfoot, caught in peripheral vision, there is a mayfly, fresh from the river. Only centimetres from my nose, I can see its wings pulsing, a long triple tail, segmented body in a graceful curve, and a trace of gold on its forewing.

Coloburiscus humeralis, a beautiful mayfly whose nymphs I had never seen in these waters. They are chunky little nymphs, best copied with peacock herl -- three short strands for a tail, herl wrapped for the body and claret silk for a wing case. Add legs of brown hen and  it’s finished. 

I have some lightly weighted #14 in my flybox. 

In my fishing jacket, in an unused pocket, I also find a small plastic container of  fine clay mixed with detergent. I have not used this material for years and had forgotten it even existed.  A few drops of water and the clay becomes slippery. A little between forefinger and thumb applied to the last metre of the leader and all is ready. The nymph is cast upstream from the last rise. It pulls the leader into the water with the detergent-clay mixture helping to break the surface tension and sending the nymph to the right depth.

The leader stops, leaving a wake in the water. The strike is too late and the fish is gone. But it works.  It takes three more casts to three more rises before a fish is caught.

It is dark, now, and the return home is a happy journey. The fish will be eaten for an entrée. Just a little on each plate, served with an harissa dressing made with cream. There will be olives, large and black and thick with oil. And to celebrate I will open a bottle of Riesling. In the lamplight, as I walk, there are caddis flies and fat porina moths from the nearby paddock, and a morepork calls and is answered from the other side of the river. 

And in the distance a red deer roars, the first of the season. 

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