Fishing Small Streams

Graduating from the ‘beginners’ fishing on big productive rivers is for most of us, a slow and painful process. It is always so much easier to fish rivers where the fishing is easy (most of the time) and you can normally back yourself to catch a fish or three. Every angler that has fished for a few years has their favourite river where they know from experience the lies in the most productive stretches and the flies to use to entice the trout. But if we keep fishing that river, our flyfishing skills will never improve. Sure we will catch fish regularly, even when others may not, but where is the challenge?

If we are not extending ourselves by trying our skills in a different and maybe difficult new environment, we are not progressing. By resorting to the familiar water, you lose the challenge of catching trout in a brand new piece of water and the exhilaration of mastering that challenge. Some of this reluctance is due to the time that is needed to get to know new water. How much time do we waste trying to find access to back country rivers that some deer shooter mate told us about? And, once we find the river, trying to work out where the best stretches are. Then, on the river, there is the whole process of finding where the trout lie in this particular water – at the head of the pools, in the deeper runs, in the rocky riffles, beside the undercut banks, at the confluence of incoming streams, etc. Every river or stream is different and will even change as the seasons go by and after floods or droughts. All that knowledge is hard-earned, the ‘hard yards’ of getting to know a new stretch of water.

So it is natural to take the easy option and just head down to the usual spot to pick up your limit in quick time, fishing the same lies with the same flies that we always do. However if we are ever to become better anglers, it is necessary at some stage to accept that you have to risk going fishless for sometime while you explore new water. This is especially so if you get into small stream fishing. It was after reading one of Tony Orman’s books, that I started to think about such fishing. There was a picture of Tony hanging onto to a 2.5 kg trout in a stream a bit over one metre wide winding through open farmland. I mean you cross such streams all the time as you drive around New Zealand but how many of us think about fishing them? Tony also, very perceptively, pointed out that the trickle of a creek you see at the road bridge does not mean that there is not a more substantial flow further up the valley. This has been proven so true by my explorations of small streams, it has become normal for me to ignore the size of a stream at road-side sighting. What you find further up the valley can be a delightful, classic-pooled stream with trout growing to a good size thanks to the lack of anglers.

This especially seems to be the case of streams flowing into major rivers. I can think of several tributaries of the Mohaka that are pathetic thin trickles where they enter the main river. But walk up the stream a kilometre or so and you will find a gorge with delightful pools, runs and rapids.

One of these is the Makahu which you cross over on the way to Hot Springs up the Puketitri Road in back country Hawkes Bay.













Where this stream enters the Mohaka, it is only a few cm deep, and spread out over 3 m of slimy rocks. It doesn’t look like it could support anything larger than a smelt. However venture up only a hundred metres and you are in a gorge containing maybe a dozen of the most awesome pools you would ever want to fish. And in most of them, early or late in the season, will be a trout of at least 1.5 kg and maybe as big as 3 kg. They are not easy to catch as trout from the big river tend to become pretty spooky when they enter the confined spaces of the tributary. They just don’t seem as relaxed as they do when they are swanning about deep in the big river pools. But if you persevere and fish slowly with care, they are catchable. And hooking one of those 3 kg beauties in such small water is an adrenaline rush. No just standing on the bank while the trout swims up and down the pool exhausting itself – here you will be hanging onto an express train bent on returning to the main river 500 m away!

One of the least attractive-looking small streams from a road bridge is the Taione Stream in the Ohakune area. As you drive towards Ohakune from the State Highway 2, you will cross over a culvert. If you slow down enough, you will see it is called the Taione culvert. Believe it or not, this is a serious trout stream you have just run over. You can fish down from there but it is probably more productive to drive around to just above the Waimarino Golf Course where the Taione joins the Mangawhero River. Here the stream is about 2 m wide with plenty of cover in the short deep pools and undercut banks. Trout of 3 – 4 kg are caught in this small stream but of course not in great numbers. You will be wending your way across farmland as the stream meanders through the willow-lined lower section.




Further up, the banks become more open and there is even a couple of very large, still pools where large trout could easily hang out in relative safety. This is a good spot if you are there one evening as the smooth water is broken by free-rising trout.




From the big pools on, the stream starts to narrow and the distant Mt Ruapehu dominates the landscape.






From here on, a very cautious approach is essential.
One good ploy is to use any bankside vegetation to sneak up to a pool and dap to sighted trout. This involves simply the extending of the rod over the foliage and dapping the fly down onto the surface just up from the waiting fish. Only the leader will extend through the guides and no line will lay on the water to put off the wary trout.

A dry fly is best but a nymph also works well as long as you can enter it quietly into the water. Or you can cover both options by using a ‘combo’ rig with a nymph suspended a metre or so below a buoyant dry fly. You will be able to see the take on either fly so it makes for a nerve-wracking time as you wait for the fish to languidly approach your little trap. It works especially well on cruising browns when you can wait for them to pass and then dap your fly on the water waiting for trout to start up on its next beat. It is not uncommon in slower water for the fly to be taken when the trout is on its way back down the pool. If you are using a light rod, you had better be ready for a strong reaction from one very surprised trout!

The rod I most use for such excursions is a 5 weight 2.75 m (9 ft) . The length is useful to give you extra reach when you are dapping and helps to control drag when you are fishing the far bank. When fishing overgrown streams, such as those flowing down the slopes of Mt Taranaki (Egmont), I use a 4 weight 2.45m (8 ft) rod that is easier to roll cast up the confined spaces. It does not pay to take your expensive Graphite IV casting machine unless you have a very friendly insurance company. You will never need to cast more than 5 metres so all that expensive technology would be wasted.
As casting room is bound to be limited, Weight Forward lines are preferable as these rollcast better than Double Taper lines. If it is a stream that calls for roll casting all day, then the a Triangle Taper line is worth considering as you can get better roll casting length with a lighter line. That means you can put out a reasonable length rollcast but land it gently on the water. Some anglers overload their rods by one line weight for this type of fishing which is fine until you strike spooky trout that will skoot off at the splash of the heavier line. Naturally leaders will be light and short as there will not be much length to the pools. I favour a 1.5 m braided leader with a tippet of 1-1.5 m depending on the length and depth of the pools.

But what you will need most is patience and a desire to explore new water without feeling you are wasting fishing time. Because when you have discovered your ‘dream stream’, you will relish having a bolthole for when you tire of the crowded rivers. So give it a try sometime – there must be only a few thousand or so such streams in New Zealand to choose from!