Fishing in a Nor'Wester

“Have you heard the forecast? Its for a howling Nor’Wester. You can’t fish in a Nor’Wester!” declared my Christchurch mate, John.
“Well, I’ve only got tomorrow so I think I’ll give it a go anyway,” I replied.
“You must be nuts – all you Aucklanders are the same,” said John.
He was probably right about me; I’m reluctant to judge the other million or so. It might indeed prove to be a waste of a day but when you only have one day set aside for fishing, there wasn’t much choice. I knew the infamous Canterbury Nor’Wester well having spent a couple of years in that fair city, many years ago. The prospect of what that fierce wind would do to my very average casting did not bear thinking about.
The next day dawned with the typical Canterbury North Western ‘arch’ already in place obscuring the Alps. I decided to stick with my original destination, the Hurunui River, on the basis that the gorge sections might give me some shelter from the gale. It was the first of December and the temperature was mild, thanks to the warm wind. There was a car ahead of me and when that stopped at the second gorge, I drove on up to the Sisters Stream area. I had read that the fishing in this stretch was perhaps the best on the river and despite many visits to the Hurunui, I had never fished that area. Reaching the car park around 10 am, I was pleased to note only one other car in residence. That was carefully parked under the trees and looked like it might well belong to a tramper rather than a competing angler. As I opened the car door, the full ferocity of the wind struck me and I started to think John might well have had a point.
I pulled out the rod case, thankful I’d thrown in the 7 weight rod. I dug out my WF7F reel and tackled up. It was a surprisingly short stroll across the paddocks before the river came into sight. I crossed the swing bridge which was swaying markedly in the wind coming directly downstream. Looking up the river there was some attractive-looking water so I decided to start fishing up from the bridge. The colour of the water was stunning – a beautiful deep green that just cried out to be photographed. I had figured that as the fishing was probably not going to be great, I might as well get some more photos for my upcoming book, as the Hurunui was one of the featured rivers. The resulting photo did manage to capture some of the beauty of the river but of course failed to reflect the extent of the howling Nor’Wester.
I walked around to the first pool above the bridge and set about fishing an attractive large pool. Stripping out some line, I tried a cast. Splat! My cast travelled about two metres before it was dumped heavily on the water. Allowing the line to stream down in the current, I tried a from-the-current-cast. It was a slight improvement but I was nowhere near the seam water that I was trying to reach. I decided to move up to the next corner pool as I would be more side on to the wind and also get a bit of shelter from the cliff overhanging the pool. It was necessary to wade over a shallow riffle to reach the island beside the pool. This meant I was halfway across the river and the necessary casting distance was reduced. Using a from-the-current-cast, I was able to get out about 5 metres of line and that was enough to get a drift down the centre of the narrow pool. The current movement was very swirly and I was not convinced I had got a real ‘dead’ drift. I had on a size 10 Hare’n’Copper sinker with a size 14 Pheasant Tail tailfly. Second drift through looked more natural and a fish agreed. The small indicator moved sideways and I lifted the rod. A solid strike. Then a huge fish leaped into the air and landed with a heavy splat. It looked like a double figure fish.
A long, dogged fight then ensued with me following fish up and down the pool from the comparative comfort of my island bank. Until he decided to head for the far bank to see what obstructions he could find along the bush-strewn bank. So it was into the coolish water and across the tail of the pool to get enough side strain on him to get him back into the current. A few more runs and I was able to coax him onto the shingle where he lay exhausted, silver flank gleaming in the sunlight. Because of the long fight, I did not delay his release any longer but quickly reached down and flicked out the Pheasant Tail with my forceps. He flapped back into the current immediately so seemed to be OK. I would have liked a photo but it would have taken several minutes to get out the SLR and I didn’t like to leave him so long out of the water. I sat down for a rest and replayed in my mind the image of that great silver fish lying at the river’s edge. It was easily my biggest fish from the Hurunui. Up till then a six pounder had been the best landed from several excursions. This one looked the same size as the two double figure sea run browns that I had taken from the Boyle a few years before.
I moved up to the head of the pool figuring the antics of the fish would have put off any other resident. Above the pool was a fast riffle, so fast that you could nearly call it a rapid. The water was only half a metre deep and looked far too fast to hold fish. As I wandered along the side of the riffle, a grey shape caught my eye. Stopping, I peered into the wind-ruffled water. As I watched, the grey shape shot off to one side, obviously feeding actively. I was standing virtually alongside it so decided not to move in case I spooked the fish. I carefully let out some line into the current and then flung the whole lot forward into the teeth of the gale. Three metres of line landed in an untidy heap. I scrambled to retrieve the worst of the loose line as the nymph raced toward the grey shape. The fish seemed to hurl itself at the fly and just about hooked itself. Another huge silver brown leaped skywards. A short but vicious fight ensued before an eight pound hen was landed near the head of the pool.









Back up the riffle, I saw yet another grey shape. One hour later, the riffle had yielded up four trout, in order: 8, 6, 7 and 9 pounds. Why where there so many large fish? Had they moved out of the security of the deep pool to feed in the riffle because of the cover provided by the wind-tossed water? Or was there a myriad of wind-blown terrestrials coming downriver and the riffle was the best place to intercept them? I am convinced that the howling gale had certainly contributed by disturbing the trout’s’ window so much that they were much more likely to venture into the shallow riffle than they would normally have been.

Whatever the reason, I know where I will be the next time I am in Canterbury during a Nor’Wester. There is a good chance too that a certain Christchurch mate might join this (only slightly) mad Northerner to check whether fishing in Nor’Wester does have some merit.

Finish position when casting into the wind
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