A great catch
Wild side
The wild remote rivers and oversize trout of New Zealand have drawn anglers from around the world ever since our forebears had the foresight to acclimatise valued sports fish throughout the Dominion.
Corey Ratner of Los Angeles is one such angler drawn annually to our hallowed wilderness waters, and over the past three years we’ve flown all over the northern South Island by helicopter in search of angling’s Holy Grail.
We’ve never found it yet, but we’ve come tantalisingly close on many occasions, with beautiful brown trout taken on the dry fly in stunningly picturesque settings amongst silver waters, beech forest, and giant boulders.
Stellar weather made for classic sight fishing conditions under hot sun and low flowing rivers, with wet wading and lashings of sunscreen being the order of the day.
This year we explored rivers in Nelson/Marlborough, West Coast, and North Canterbury without drama, unlike last year when we had 1080 poison dumped all around us while we fished the South Branch of the Mohikinui river.
Corey was joined by his girlfriend Jordan, and her best friend Dacha, and although we headed south for a few days to helifish Reefton without the girls, Corey was keen to spend more time based from Nelson city.
On our last day down south, the stream was getting smaller and more marginal and the helicopter was less than half hour away from pickup, when I spotted a big trout cruising downstream toward us while we crouched on a high grassy bank above.
We thought the game was up, but fortuitously, the big fish started sipping unseen flies off the water. We tried several dry flies which bought the trout up, but were refused after close inspection.
Lengthening Corey’s leader with gossamer-thin 5x fluorocarbon tippet, I attached a tiny #18 Adams dry fly, before Corey delivered the fly 30cm in front of the trout’s nose.
There was no hesitation this time, with a confident slurp of the fly, solid hook-up, and a stellar and thrilling fight. We both knew it was a good fish, but when the French-made Chatillion scales thumped down to 10.25lb, Corey had just landed his first ever double-digit trout, and on highly sporting tackle too.
Maybe it was an omen, because tomorrow was the big day.
Out on the river, we’d talked about all sorts of topics, and the big one was Corey’s intention to propose marriage to Jordan on a New Zealand trout stream.
He had permission from Jordan’s family and the blessing of his family, while Dacha was in on the act too bringing the ring over from California. The only thing to do was to choose a location.
Corey’s good friend Dale Kinsella, a veteran of 27 New Zealand fly fishing campaigns and a dry fly aficionado, was part of the that Corey would ask the woman he loved to marry him.
I’d joked with Corey that there were three rings in marriage: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering but there was no turning back for Corey.
The only person who didn’t know was Jordan. Flying into Kahurangi with HeliCharter Nelson pilot Matt Gibb we encountered thick cloud on the western side of the ranges as Matt expertly found a hole to descend into the swirling grey world below.
We flew the river to check for anglers but there wasn’t a soul in sight and the Hollywood beat was ours alone. On the first decent pool below the bluffs, I spied a trout feeding in fast water that rose with confidence and hammered Corey’s dry fly, so things were looking good.
Around the corner, we identified three possible proposal sites. Corey asked my opinion and I outlined the merits of each site but insisted that it was his choice alone. Pick-up time came fast and the radio crackled as Matt announced his arrival. The girls were onboard already and we sped downstream with the two women mesmerised by the turquoise waters below.
Landing at Corey’s preferred site, I climbed aboard the chopper again to give Corey, Jordan, and Dacha some privacy while we picked up Dale and Tony to join the party.
When we returned the deed was clearly done, with a positive outcome too. Jordan was hugging Corey, everyone was waving, and even the old married men in the helicopter were going all gooey. Matt did a victory circuit around the happy couple before we landed to celebrate with champagne, grape juice, and nibbles.
We laughed, we cried, we hugged. It was one hell of a way to end a fishing day as a thunderstorm descended upon us with crashing thunder and raindrops as the happy couple departed for Nelson while we fished on.