Hugh Creasy column for Reel Life March 2018
Creasy's Column - By Hugh Creasy
A maize crop has been harvested and the Canada geese are moving in. There are hundreds of them, and a few black swans and plovers – a noisy congregation with the swans as silent celebrants.
On the mountain screes high up where the vegetable sheep grow and dwarf hebes throw seeds to the wind after a hard summer, there is the crackle of ice in the mornings. The shingle breathes as the sun strikes, a slow susurration as particles expand. Stones are clumping – ice bound, soon to be gripped in winter’s chill.
Mountain daisies look dead, dessicated, flowers long gone, their root systems hard, fibrous, searching for protection in rocky fissures. Winter is coming. At altitude it is meaningful and the plants have adapted.
Lower down the evening freeze is thawed by midday, and the chill waters descend to the lowlands where fish and birds search hungrily for sustenance. Cool water wakens the trout and the insects they feed on. Where mayflies and caddis have survived the heated flows of summer, they now rise in the mornings and evenings, hurrying to mate and spread their eggs. Nature’s in a hurry. Another month or two and it will be too late.
To survive the winter, birds need to feed. If they don’t have a protective layer of fat, the cold will kill them. Trout will be spawning, and they need strength to fight for the right to cover the redds where the hens are already feeling the urge to mark a territory.
Geese in the paddock next to the river are skinny. They are still recovering from the rigours of the moult and a hard summer raising their young. Hunters often shoot them too early in the season and complain that they are scrawny and poor eating, and their carcasses are left to rot. Given a month or two for the fat to cover their breasts and the eating quality rises enormously. A Canada goose in prime condition makes a marvellous roast, but the bird must be carefully chosen and prepared.
It’s the same with trout. They are at their peak as a game fish just before spawning in late autumn. Their flesh will be succulent and oily. But take only a brightly silvered fish, deep in the stomach with no darkness of skin. Return the dull ones. They will grow brighter as the season progresses. There are exceptions to the rule, of course.
A few years ago I was fishing one of the southern West Coast lakes. Its inlet flowed through heavy beech forest, and a tangle of fallen beech had to be negotiated to reach open water. The fish I spotted were cruising over golden sand heavily streaked with leaf mould. They were big brown trout and because I stood in shade with the sun behind me, I was invisible to them. I flicked a big damsel nymph to the nearest one and it took it with great gusto. It was more by good luck than good management that I landed it, after a battle through sunken branches and heavy weed.
The fish weighed three kilos was deep in the body, and apart from a pale strip of belly was coal black. I killed it and opened its gut. It was full of hard-cased caddis. It’s flesh was bright orange and there was a thick band of fat on its skin. It was a creature of stunning beauty and had a flavour to match. I think its colour came from a combination of tannin-stained water, caddis and snails. In the lake itself the fish were of normal colouration.
Although tannin-stained, the water had a clarity that was quite deceiving and stepping off the bank had to be carefully judged. The forest acted as a filter and stabilised the flow in an area where rainfall is measured in metres. It is only when you are in wild, virgin country that you get an inkling of what the rivers must have been like before settlement and development turned them into drains, largely unfit for drinking and marginally of use for recreation.
Planting the margins will work wonders on our rivers, especially those that run through urban environments. Perhaps, in a few years, urban dwellers will once again wonder at the richness of our natural heritage as they swim the pools of rivers and streams, unworried by swallowing the occasional mouthful.
In the meantime we fish the slime and politics-infested, near-poisonous rivers where trout survive by the barest of margins. Still, the memories are good, and the purity of southern waters gives us an idea of great possibilities.Back to Reel Life.
Categories
Archive
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- December 2013
- March 2013
- September 2012
- July 2012