Tag: Derek Grzelewski

“Yous fellas fishin'?” a Maori guy asked on the shore of Lake Otomangakau. I said we were having a look. “Plenty a fish here, bro. Big bastards, too. But bloody hard to catch, ay.” He was lean and hard, dressed in a bush shirt and hunting shorts, both of which had a lived-in, heavy-use look, and his legs and arms were scratched with bush lawyer and...

IN THE MORNING we started up the river, zigzagging against its meanders, linking up shoulder to shoulder for the crossings, stalking the tails and eyes of every pool. The middle parts of pools, sandy, deep and slow-moving, were impossible. The fish, like submarines, were either parked right at the bottom or finned leisurely in circles, nymphing among the...

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN on a fishing trip, long planned and much anticipated, where nothing seems to go right for you? You arse up just stepping out of the helicopter and give yourself a good one on the shin, a bruise that over the following days blossoms plump and purple like a Baccara rose. And that’s just the beginning. You promptly trump this with another...