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October-December 2024 Issue: The Lede...

Secrets of the South Island

New Zealand's most decorated lodge joins the global Eleven portfolio.

Fly Fisherman October-December 2024 Issue
(Brian O'Keefe photo)

Mount Owen stoically pushes up through the fog and clouds of the Tasman District of the South Island of New Zealand, and at 1,875 meters (6,150 feet) above sea level is the highest peak in Kahurangi National Park. Its spectacular marble karst geology makes it a major draw for hikers, photographers, cavers, and scientists of all kinds. The marble’s surface is incredibly featured by erosion, with deep slots and trenches—some of them paper-thin fissures, others as wide as hallways. Where one slot ends, another begins nearby as though some giant dragon had raked and cut the stone.

It’s an otherworldly setting, so much so that scenes from The Lord of the Rings were filmed here. When Gandalf fell into the abyss with the Balrog, and the rest of the fellowship exited the mines of Moria into what Tolkien described as Dimrill Dale, they were actually on Mount Owen. And Mount Owen actually is riddled with underground caverns and mazes, including Bulmer Cavern, New Zealand’s longest cave system, which has been mapped and explored to depths of 50 miles.

The mountain and the name “Owen” have a circular historical connection. The mountain is named after English biologist Richard Owen, who studied the bones of extinct species and first coined the term “dinosaur” in 1841. While Owen was working with sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, they eventually used fossilized bones as a framework and were the first to create sculptures of what dinosaurs might have looked like.

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More Inside This Issue:

Simplify Your Nymphs: Don't Change Your Fly Pattern, Change the Weight

Some anglers put a lot of time and thought into finding the right fly patterns to fill their fly boxes. I was one of those anglers. I spent hours looking through books and searching the Internet for inspiration on new fly designs to use on my next fishing

River of Return: The Smith River is Montana's Most Coveted Fly-Fishing Float

The ponderosa pines that lined the riverbanks and climbed along the hillsides released their pollen in a yellow haze as the sun began descending behind the ridgeline at our first campsite. Streaks of sunlight illuminated the flickering caddis and Pale Morning Duns like swirling balls of light. A handful of PMDs rode the currents, drying their wings in the waning light, oblivious to their inevitable demise in the jaws of the Smith's wild trout.

Scott River: A Blueprint for Recovering Legacy Fisheries

In the last 12 months, four dams have been removed on the Klamath River, reconnecting over 300 miles of historical salmon and steelhead habitat. To fishermen, this sounds appealing, but where are all the new fish going to come from to repopulate that area and help recover this legacy fishery? By now, we all know hatcheries aren't the answer for recovering native fish stocks. We need wild fish to do that, and wild fish need habitat.

Flip's World: A Legendary Guide's Thoughts on Being a Mentor, and Being a Mentee

They took me to a place they named “The Gap,” which is what they still call it, 50 years or better since they first saw it on a set of aerial photographs. It was where the Everglades backcountry opened up to them like an ancient scroll. They still had to translate its hieratic script and calligraphy of mangroves and oyster-armored creek mouths, which would be a years-long undertaking. But that would be the easy part. The fun part. Figuring out the secret passageway was the greater challenge, and one that required a curious convergence of factors: Flip Pallot was growing increasingly agitated by the lack of solitude to be found in the Keys, and Biscayne Bay, and parts of Florida Bay. And Rob Fordyce happened to be dating a woman with a pilot's license and an airplane.

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