Trout fishing Guides – to have or not to have?

I often get asked – especially by overseas anglers – should they hire a guide in New Zealand. It is a very serious question and the angler asking it is often perturbed when a smile passes my lips before I answer. “Well it depends”, I usually reply. My lack of a wholesale endorsement is due to the mixed experience I have had with professional trout fishing guides. The smile is due to some of the memories that flash by when I think of some of the guides I have known. The reader will excuse me if I mention the names of the good ones and to avoid recrimination, omit the names of the ones that were not so hot.

My first guide was not booked but thrown in as the result of a mix up when I booked a Mohaka helicopter fishing trip for a Swiss principal of mine. The guide associated with the helicopter service, Clark Reid, took the booking. It was only when we turned up at 8 am for the day’s fishing that we were informed he had mucked it up. The helicopter pilot was due at a wedding that afternoon and apparently Clark should never have taken our booking. As a result of his mistake, we could only fish for the morning as there was no way the pilot could miss the wedding. I never found out but suspected it was probably his wedding. Anyway, if we wanted to proceed, then a half day was all that they could offer in terms of helifishing. However they did offer us the services of Clark to guide us on the Taharua River that flowed through the heliport property. As I knew that the stream had quite a reputation, this was a very acceptable counter proposal. I had not booked a guide for the Mohaka trip as I was quite experienced on that river and figured that we could do alright without one.

The harassed pilot dropped us in at a section of the Mohaka below the hut known as the ‘Mohaka Hilton’. The pilot assured us that area had not been fished for several days. This assertion was not supported by the number of foot prints we found on alighting from the craft. This led us to the conclusion that the closeness of the area to the heliport might be the real reason for it’s selection. I decided to get away from the hordes that obviously had been fishing around the Hilton hut area and we quickly forged upstream. Once we got a reasonable distance above the hut, we took our time and fished hard. To no avail. Never saw a fish, never hooked one either. Not even a silly ‘tiddler’ bothered to take our flies. My disposition was not improved when halfway through the morning a whole raft full of anglers came down the river from the fishing lodge on the Taharua. The number of bristling rods in the raft promised that somewhere downstream was going to get a real thrashing.

Eventually two dispirited anglers were picked up by chopper pilot who dropped us back at base and took off to his wedding. As penance for the overbooking, an unpaid Clark Reid had to take us fishing for rest of afternoon. We started in on the Taharua just up from road bridge. The river is just a small stream at this point winding quietly through manuka and grassy fields. You cannot fish below the bridge as the fishing lodge owner has riparian rights from here down to the confluence with the Mohaka.

In the pool above the bridge, Clark pointed out a nice trout feeding half a metre out from the bush-clad bank. The wind was blowing quite strongly down the stream. Clark invited my Swiss mate Walter to have a go. Now Walter was quite a reasonable caster but had never had to cast to visible fish before that time. He had a few goes but was unable to get his fly close enough to the bank to get the nymph to swing in to where trout was lying. Then he suggested I have a go.

“Gee, thanks” I thought. I did not particularly relish looking like a mug in front of a real gun angler. The first cast showed me the extent of Walter’s problems. The gusty wind tended to blow the flyline out into the centre of the stream. There was a danger of lining the fish if you wanted to get the fly close. The only solution seemed to be a reverse roll cast that would land the line in the centre of the small stream and hopefully gently unfurl the leader so that the fly landed just above the trout. Fortunately the theory worked and the size 14 Pheasant Tail dropped in quietly a metre up from the trout. We saw him move to the nymph and by the time the guide yelled strike, I was already tightening. A solid take ensued and it was not too long before a 3 lb (1.4 kg) brown was in the net.

We moved on upstream without spotting any more trout. The bank on our side started to rise up and we climbed up until we were some 20 metres up above the water. Looking down we soon could see a good size trout feeding on the other side of the stream.

“Have a go,” invited Clark. I started walking down the bank with the idea of getting back to the river level to cross over and fish up to the trout.

“No, from here I mean.”

“You’ve got to be joking! That’s impossible.”

“Just watch,” he said with a smile. Clark took my rod; peeled off 25 metres of line; got the whole lot airborne and cast the long line towards the trout. Although the line naturally landed a bit heavily, the trout was not spooked. He came out and examined the fly but refused it and went back to his spot. Clark retrieved the fly rather precariously through the bankside foliage of the cliff and changed to a smaller fly. He cast again but no response again. Reeling in, he related how he had caught one from this cliff the week before but obviously this one was just not going to cooperate. When I asked how he landed the fish, he said it was achieved by carefully working back down the bank while playing the fish. Then once the river level had been gained, he crossed over and landed the trout.

We fished on, picking up several fish on the Clarke’s own grasshopper pattern which were readily engulfed by the prolific numbers of fish in this small stream. We learned much from Clark’s detailed knowledge of the behaviour and location of the trout he knew so well. It was with regret that the afternoon came to a close as we still had much to learn from this knowledgeable guide. There was no doubt we had learned a lot more in the afternoon with the guide than in the morning without one.

The next experience with a guide also came when I was entertaining Walter. This time we stayed at a fishing lodge in the Nelson Lakes area at the top of the South  Island. The lodge was full of American fishermen and the permanent lodge guides were all allocated to the richer clients. As short term guests, only there for the weekend, we were assigned the services of a part time guide from Nelson. It turned out his normal job was as a ladies’ hairdresser – not quite what you would have expected. But he turned out to be a very nice guy and very knowledgeable about fishing. The problem was he was at the bottom end of the totem pole when it came to organising which client/guide got which river for the day. It turned out that these important decisions were made early in the morning when the guides assembled at the lodge while us clients were woofing down the last rasher or three of bacon. Naturally the more important clients got the best waters and that left us ‘weekenders’ with whatever was left. In our case that was a stretch of the Mangles River. This is a delightful little river, very handy to the lodge but also very accessible, being right by the road for much of its length. Most of the Murchison anglers must have fished it at sometime. From the amount of footprints we found on advancing to the river, it appeared they had done so in the last week.

Now I’m quite willing to admit I am no expert when it comes to fishing to visible fish but would certainly class myself as an average trout fisherman. Well average was not good enough for the Mangles fish. One cast over their heads and they were off! I was fishing with a 6 weight outfit and had on 2 kg tippet material on a long leader. No matter – I could have scared the fish if I had tossed in the nymph without any nylon attached! The only fish I caught was when the guide was serving lunch and I was able to resort to my more familiar ‘blind nymphing’ techniques and picked up a nice trout in the riffle at the top of a slower pool. But such rough’n’ready tactics were not allowed and it was then back to spotting trout and fishing to them.

Walter did manage to hook one and did a very good job of subdueing the feisty fish. The guide stepped into the stream to net the trout with the tiddly ‘teardrop’ nets that they seem to favour. As you have to get right alongside the fish with these shorthandled nets, the trout kept racing off every time he put the net near. Finally he got close enough to slide the net under the exhausted trout. Just then his feet slipped and down he went on his backside in the tide. The net came up, snagged on the leader and pulled the fly from the trout’s jaw. Off went the relieved trout while a very embarassed guide extracted himself from the stream. I was about to burst into laughter at this comedy of errors when I saw Walter’s downcast face. He was distraught at losing the fish after doing so well up till then. I quickly sympathsized with him and assured him there would be another. Unfortunately there was not as the trout all seemed to disappear for a mid afternoon siesta. We fished on listlessly until our guide finally decided to call it quits. He then took us to the local pub and bought us a beer by way of compensation. But I think Walter would have preferred the trout.

I also have known of friends that have hired the top rated guides in the country only to be foiled by rain-swollen rivers or uncooperative fish. Hiring a guide is no guarantee that the fish will be on the feed that particular day.

So it pays to ask a few questions before you commit yourself to the considerable expense of hiring a guide. They are unlikely to tell you before you pay up where they might take you but you could ask if it is somewhere that is not accessible to ‘Joe Public’. I have heard that many guides will not take New Zealanders to their special spots as there is the danger that the Kiwis will tell all their mates. If it is just a stretch of a waterway you could just as easily access on your own, then you have to be assured that the guide can provide the specialist knowledge that will improve your chances. Those anglers with limited time and not so limited budgets will do better with a guide. The rest of us might be better off reading all the available references and then enjoying the pleasure of getting to know a new piece of water.