Living the Great Adventure

Living the Great Adventure

Fishing Middle Earth: Zane Mirfin & Tony Entwistle on top of Nelson's Mt. Owen, site of filming for the 'Lord of the Rings' movie.

Zane Mirfin set a fly upon the water for the first time professionally in November of 1985 when he accepted an offer to work for Nelson Lakes Guiding Services Ltd. The company was founded by Tony Entwistle who was one of the pioneers of freshwater guiding in the Top of the South. Zane was 18-years old at the time and two decades later he is still guiding, but has turned the full circle to partner Tony in a new business called Strike Adventure.

“Tony dreamed up this great adventure, asked me to be part of it and I’m still living it”. Zane recounts an incident that happened recently which causes him to smile. The two were in bed one night, but fortunately in different rooms, when Zane called out in typical Waltonian fashion, “Tony, I want to thank you for all the great opportunities you’ve created for me over the years”. He lay listening to the silence for a time, wondering whether ‘Wistle’ had heard him. The dry retort eventually found its way through the open door from the next room, “I don’t know why you’re thanking me Mirf, I’m probably the guy who @^&*#!! up your life”.

The guiding has taken Zane abroad and he fondly remembers five summers fishing in the States, four through which he guided professionally. The first summer he just “fished his brains out”, fishing virtually every day for 6 months.
When he returned two years later he was based in Basalt out of Aspen, Colorado and took a job as one of 20 guides for a local flyshop. One of the shop’s clients was the movie giant, Warner Bros. and Zane found it fascinating how the whole industry worked. He said they got to guide some pretty influential people and some of the industry’s top power brokers, which are the producers and directors, and not the actors. There were plenty of celluloid faces to rub shoulders with though and some of the actors and celebrities who made use of flyshop and guiding service included Kevin Costner, Joe Cocker, Goldie Hawn, John Denver and the Fonz.

A lot of water has passed between the waders of Zane Mirfin since he was an 18 year-old, but he says the industry has seen more changes in the previous 2 years than in the past 20. Some of the issues confronting guiding today include the current high dollar, a shrinking resource, plans to restrict helicopter access to wilderness areas and the possible effects of the invasive alga didymo. The majority of clients are from overseas, so the effects of world terrorism, threats of bird flu and the recent hurricanes in America all filter down to us. On the local scene the possibility of losing important rivers like the Wairau and Gowan to hydro developments can’t be taken lightly. However, the biggest threat he sees to professional guiding and probably the most insidious is a bureaucracy gone mad. Zane said compliance costs are crippling and the industry is over regulated.

He sees the future as less adventurous than the past and believes the Wild West days are over. “Guiding will require increased sophistication in systems and support structures to continue operating in an increasingly regulated and bureaucratic world”. But in spite of this, he believes we still have a wonderful resource.

Zane has guided so many customers, that no one guiding experience stands out as the definitive guiding moment for him, but it is clear from where his greatest satisfaction derives. He sees it as a privilege to be able to put people onto good fish, but it is those situations where adversity stands between the client and the fish and is overcome that satisfy him most. Successfully guiding an octogenarian with a grim determination to catch a fish, the polio victim with the most amazing attitude, the grandfather, who through his guide passes on the gift of fishing to his grandson, or the cancer sufferer on his last fishing trip – these are the badges Zane Mirfin wears on his guiding arm with pride.

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