Makarora patience

The Makarora River, which enters Lake Wanaka from the north, is where the Edmonton Sun’s Neil Waugh heads to fish. “You quickly learn that New Zealand trout fishing is unlike most other forms of fly fishing because you spend a lot more time not fishing than you do with a line on the water,” Waugh says. “It’s probably closer to spotting big horn rams in the Rockies than to what passes for Alberta trout angling. The exercise factor is also about the same, too. You spend a lot of time hiking along the river bank staring intently at a dancing riffle, hoping that a shadow or a rock or a log will suddenly transmute itself into a rainbow or brown trout as long as your arm. This business takes a lot of imagination and perseverance.”