Wildside- Exploring the rivers around Blenheim, Marlborough

Exploring an untapped jewel

© Zane Mirfin, Wildside Column, Exploring an untapped Jewel, Nelson Mail, 1 January 2011

The outdoors lures a man from his Christmas bolt-hole.


Keen fisher: Rosie Mirfin at Tuamarina near Blenheim.

Maybe the worst time to go hunting and fishing is between Christmas and New Year. Public holidays and warm weather can mean hordes of people out there on the water, or in the hills, getting in the way or detracting from the quality of the outdoor experience.

Personally, I prefer to eat, drink, and be merry, because it is a special time of year to spend with friends and family.

As a self-employed guy, it’s great to escape to the bosom of my family, let the cellphone batteries go flat and sleep like the dead.

Blenheim has always been a great bolt-hole for me and this Christmas was no exception. It has a warm, sunny climate and friendly locals, but the thing I’ve always liked most about Blenheim is the anonymity of the experience, and even cruising along the crowded streets and stores during the Boxing Day sales, we encountered few people we knew.

Blenheim is a bit of an untapped outdoor jewel, with some wonderful opportunities in and about town.

Built on a swamp, it has rivers running right through town, is close to the sea, and has abundant hills and mountains nearby.

The dominant physical feature of the area is the nearby Wairau River, which has shaped the Wairau Plains and created the extensive Wairau lagoons. So within a half hour drive of town, there are arguably many more quality sporting opportunities than on our side of the Richmond Ranges.

Trout can be caught in the centre of town in the Taylor and Opawa rivers, nearby Spring Creek and the large braided alluvial Wairau River.

The Awatere River offers more opportunity. During the summer, pacific salmon run the Wairau, and saltwater fish such as kahawai and flounder abound in estuarine waters, as well as plentiful whitebait in season.

In the vast and shallow Wairau lagoons, birdlife flourishes and waterfowl congregate in large numbers during the winter shooting season.

In the hills and river valleys nearby, quail and small game such as rabbits and hares abound. Walking along tussock and matagouri-clad gullies and slopes has turned on some wonderful hunts, as coveys of quail explode in a flurry of wings. Other great wing shooting has come in the pursuit of feral pigeons, either over decoys or waiting near evening roosting spots near cliffs and eroded gullies.

Further back, mostly on private land, there can be great hunting for larger game in the form of goats, pigs, and red deer.

South Marlborough is a vast area which is mainly privately owned, meaning wild animal populations can
get a lot of protection from landowners, unlike the heavily poisoned public lands to the west. Getting access can be problematic unless you have good connections, but some properties hold a lot of animals that are readily accessible on day trips from Blenheim.

The thing I like most about fishing and hunting from Blenheim is that you can slip out for a morning, an evening or a whole day. There are a lot of places you can go to fill in a few hours with success, but it’s not generally a destination for visiting hunters and anglers.

The trout fishing can be good, but the weather and wind protect the resource and no commercial fishing guide has ever made a living there, because it doesn’t suit visiting overseas anglers who only want to fish the cream of the upland waters.

Fishing has definitely slipped over the years, though. Intensive development means streams have been
disturbed and don’t clear as quickly after rains as they used to. Agricultural chemicals, sewage outfalls, urban trash, housing subdivisions, more angling effort, immigrant vineyard workers, gill nets and more have probably all had their effect, but the fishing still remains remarkably resilient and worthwhile. My kids love it and have caught some impressive fish up to 3.5kg in recent years.

This trip wasn’t quite so successful.  We took two vehicles, a boat and all the gear, but never quite achieved what we’d hoped. Tired from a hard year, the spirit was willing but the body wasn’t. Jake caught one nice trout, fishing the Taylor from shore on dark during a half-hour outing on Christmas evening, but our efforts at trolling just didn’t pay dividends.

The river was coloured from recent rains, which should have been good, but the fish didn’t want to know us.

With the kids, I’m mindful of only doing short enjoyable adventures. We go out for a hour or so, but any longer
and the fun quickly wanes. This trip we enjoyed birdlife such as pukeko, swan, and royal spoonbill along the river and, although we hooked a few fish, we never got to put one in the net.

The best was a large brown trout that seven-year-old Rosie fought alongside and underneath the boat after some epic jumps and long runs.

The 3kg plus trout was a beauty, but somehow, with 10-year-old Jake on the landing net and Rosie on the rod, the 4.5kg nylon trace parted and our big fish was gone.

Then the rain came, blowing out all the rivers and even blocking the roads around Havelock and the Marlborough Sounds. It seemed as though any surviving fish would be safe from holiday anglers under swirling brown floodwaters.

Rosie and I went for a drive the next day, but the Taylor, Opawa, and Spring Creek were high and almost
unfishable. The main Wairau was brown, running bank to bank, while the Tuamarina looked like the gravy from an Indian butter chicken dish.

We took a few photos before retreating to Henderson’s, the best fishing and chandlery store I know.

Rosie chose a few new lures for her tackle box, because there is always next time and she wants to be ready for when that next big Blenheim trout strikes.