Everything else is fairly typical. You bring three rods: a small creek rod of say, seven and a half feet, but you never use it, and maybe a nine-and-a-half-foot six- or seven-weight for a poke at the lower Tongariro on the North Island or the Buller on the South, and the all-important ace in the hole: the nine-footer for a 5/6 weight line. But you don't bring flies. The guides usually won't let you use your own flies because their patterns have been field tested under conditions that can make our spring creek fishing back home look tame.

Add a few fourteen- to eighteen-foot leaders in 4X and 5X with fluorocarbon tippets, some yarn for indicators (white, yellow or green, but not red) and you're all set.

The water is relatively warm, usually in the high fifties in late summer, so waders are optional. Most cool hands show up in felt-soled wading shoes worn over a pair of polypropylene long johns and a pair of quick-drying hiking shorts.

We are now at 300 feet and the river begins to come into focus. It is beautiful beyond imagination. In the glare of sunlight it is silver, but one more turn and it yields to cerulean, then turquoise and finally the sweetest green you can imagine. It crawls in serpentine fashion through boulders and mossy canyons, then hangs like a necklace of jade in a myriad of fantastic stone settings, a pulsing artery, alive and shining. It is more than that; it is the most incredible piece of trout water I have seen in forty-five years of looking, and now — at 300 feet — at least one of its trout is suddenly visible. The heavy-shouldered monster lumbers away from the noise of the chopper and disappears into shadow. Do you know how large a trout has to be if you can see it from 300 feet?

We drop smoothly through an opening in the trees and the river explodes in circular waves from our rotors. The invasion from outer space has begun. Moments later, the Bell Jet leaves us there and leans south into oblivion like a howling insect. The wilderness gathers like a shroud.

We are here. All alone. The Inner Sanctum is ours.

Packs and gear are gathered, and I notice for the third time this morning that I have a guide with a walking stick. The first I've ever seen.

Larson grins, and fondles his ironwood. I reach around to see if the collapsible wading staff he lent me is still there. Tim begins the instructions as we start walking. "We will not," he says emphatically, "fish right away, but will hike for two hours, no matter what we see. It's necessary. Otherwise we will never make the fourteen kilometers to the 6 p.m. pick-up and we'll have to stay all night."

This is the last day of our trip and I have a non-refundable $1,500 ticket and a more than decent wife waiting for me to come home. Nevertheless, the thought of staying all night and fishing one more day is tempting. After all, there are no bears here, no man-eating tigers, no snakes — not even any snake-oil salesmen disguised as timber-management specialists.

Besides, for all I know the mortgage payment is due at home. Not only that, while I have some pretty hefty trout written down somewhere in my notes — including a nine-pound rainbow yesterday — it would be nice to add a few more. Larsen has fared even better; he took a ten-and-a-half-pound brown when we fished the South Island's "Wherearewe" River on a trek we affectionately referred to as the Death March of February 15, or simply "Camp Boris," named after the guide who dragged him and Washington, D.C. angler John Ferguson along several miles of secret pools where nothing was under ten pounds.

I watch Tim, who has now stopped and is waiting for us to catch up. He is looking at the center of a pool as we join him. He points. "Not bad," he grins. "Better than that, actually. About nine pounds. A rainbow. But we can't stop. I know it's hard, but we're better off doing the bulk of our walking now than at the end of the day."

An hour later we are in the guts of it. The forest canopy here is spectacular — a thousand chandeliers of curling limbs, covered with moss coiling across a clear blue sky and cotton clouds. Leaves wet with last night's rain sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight. There are no cut stumps or man-made signs anywhere; the forest is still aboriginal, perfect and unspoiled. The ground is spongy and so rich it smells of peat. Immense ferns and small wildflowers hang suspended like intricate floral bouquets over water so clear that ten feet of depth looks like three, and four-foot boulders shrink to pebble size. It is cool and refreshing in the shade. When you ford the shallows on a crossing, swimming mayfly nymphs scurry erratically away from your boots, and the hollow ghosts of last month's stonefly hatch cling to rocks still drying in the sun.

Suddenly a deer whistles and the sound echoes through the forest. A fish rolls heavily in the pool just ahead, free and undisturbed. He has seen nobody in a month. It is one of those defining moments when the best expressions of the sport are palpable, within reach, and the river you are wading is full of wild trout that few anglers have seen, or caught. I expect to see monkeys or Munchkins, but none appear.

"This is incredible!" Larsen exclaims. "When do we meet Tyrannosaurus Rex?"

The first pool we will fish is just ahead now, shining in the light and Tim has a fish spotted. "It isn't a really big one," he says, "but a good place to start — about seven pounds. Who's up first?"

It's a complicated issue and Larsen and I think about it. The run looks like an easy shot. The currents coming in at the head are straight; drag will not be an issue. A high cliff borders the river on the right and Tim says the fish is feeding heavily in the center current like a phantom submarine, gliding back and forth ingesting who knows what. Maybe caddis. The cast will be forty feet from a position directly below the fish and the tailout is a broad sweeping fan of shallow water with no trees near; there's plenty of room for a backcast.

I look at the run. It seems incandescent in the morning light. The tailout is still in shadow. The caster will be hidden. Perfect. I can't see the trout.

So, the first pool is always a mixed bag. On one hand, you're wired and ready for the big tug. On the other, you've been sweating and walking for so long you'd rather just flop down in the moss and take five. The thought also crosses my mind that what I really wanted to do was just get in the water, open my mouth and let the entire river run into my stomach. But I also had a down-in-my-gut, gnawing feeling that I really didn't want to be the first one of the day to blow a fish and a hard-earned opportunity. Not after two hours of hiking. If I let the other guy do that, then somehow it seems like my own sins on the next pool and for the rest of the day are somehow diminished by his.

I wonder if Larsen feels the same way. During this trip he has qualified for induction into my own pantheon of angling heroes, not only by delivering some of the best jokes I've ever heard, but also for a piece of wisdom that will change my life forever.

"Do you know," he asked while I was crawling over a fallen log, "What the single most important factor is for good health and longevity?"

I was swimming in sweat and fantasizing about a root-beer float. "Exercise?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Diet?"

"Uh-uh."

"No booze, or ciggies?"

"Nah."

"Well, what is it then?"

"Flossing your teeth."

"Larsen, come on."

"No, it's true. Your immune system has to work very hard cleaning the germs out of your teeth and gums. The effort doesn't leave much in reserve for defense against attacks on other fronts. So if you help out on the gummy end of things, you can live to be at least ninety-five. No matter what else you do." He gestured with the Masai stick to punctuate the comment.

That was almost enough, but the clincher came later while we were waiting in the Auckland airport for the long ride home. We had checked our voicemail and compared numbers of messages (the "How many do you have?" game.)

"Three hundred and seventy," Larsen said.

"Whaat?"

"Three hundred and seventy."

He wasn't kidding.

Then, three hours later, as the milling throng of international passengers started fighting one another for early boarding and the best shot at an overhead luggage compartment close to their seats, Larsen put on his shades, ruffled his hair and started leaning a bit, listing seriously to port. He looked weak and confused. Suddenly, without warning, he moved forward in a meandering, staggering path, tapping his Masai cane back and forth on the floor as if he were blind, alone and afraid. The rest of us watched incredulously as two airline attendants sprang to his side to help him tap his way past the business-class passengers, past the old lady in a wheelchair, past all the first-class passengers waiting to board.

Forty minutes later, when I got on the plane, Larsen was already asleep. The Masai stick was safely stored in the overhead luggage compartment above his seat.

My reverie is broken as Tim asks again, "Who's up?"

"Waller is," Larsen says generously, and I can hear the sound echoing off the canyon walls and reverberating all the way back to the lodge where I feel like everyone is watching us on television — to say nothing of Tim McCarthy, ace guide and expert trouter, who is now crouched in the bushes waiting for first blood by a guy who writes stories and performs in videos.

My first cast is short. That's all right, it usually is. After all, you don't want to line the darn thing.

The next one is six feet to the left (sudden breeze) and the fly lands in three inches of water. I have no idea where the fish is because I can't see it in the glare.

"Do you see him?" Tim asks.

"Yeah, I've got him," I shout back.

My next cast is eight feet to the right and almost lands on the rocky outcrop (sudden lack of breeze.)

"Are you sure you see him?" Tim asks.

"Well, I'm not sure, I guess. Where is he?" All I can see is ten million rocks at the bottom of the river and an endless labyrinth of forest.

"Do you see the brown rock?"

"Which one?"

"The one by the green bush."

"Which green bush?"

"The one by the tree."

"Oh, yeaaah..."

"Well, come straight out from the brown rock for ten feet. Then go four feet up to the gray boulder and then seven feet to the side. Then drop back a foot. He's just to the right of the fourth tan rock. The one next to the one that's not quite so tan."

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