On cold rainy days like we’ve had, my mind meanders to where I’d really like to be this month – Turangi, New Zealand, a small town on the west bank of the Tongariro River, near the center of the North Island. Built originally to accommodate workers on a hydroelectric project, today the town calls itself the “Trout Fishing Capital of the World,” a title that I will explain further down, was achieved thanks to Sonoma.
The weather there is sunny and warm now, since it’s their summer. And the trout fishing has been outstanding.
I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. There are lots of great places, not the least of which is Tongariro Lodge, one of the earliest established there. Its owners claim that, “Zane Grey made it famous, the Queen Mother stalked trout in it and Jimmy Carter found solitude beside it.”
Sitting here in Sonoma after so many days of rain and cold, I wish Dottie and I could walk in the footsteps of those famous folks. And, I’d like to go meet and greet those beautiful rainbow trout that have prospered there for more than 135 years. In some ways, we Sonomans are their great-great-great-etc. grandparents.
It all started in 1870s when the Auckland Acclimatization Society was seeking a source of rainbow trout to introduce to New Zealand. Trout are not native to that island.
The Auckland society made contact with A.V. LaMotte, who was operating a trout hatchery near the mouth of Graham Creek above Glen Ellen. Sometime around 1883, La Motte’s Sonoma Valley company shipped 30,000 trout eggs to Auckland.
The Sonoma Valley trout eggs were regularly harvested from the steelhead trout (aka sea-run rainbow trout) that migrated every fall and winter from the Pacific Ocean into San Francisco Bay, and then up Sonoma Creek and other creeks and rivers feeding into the bay. Up until the late 1960s, the offspring of these migrating rainbows hatched in the many small streams that drain our local watershed and provided excellent rainbow trout fishing for Sonoma Valley anglers, myself included.
The eggs sent by LaMotte to Auckland hatched, became fingerlings, then adults and then the source of more eggs, which produced more trout until they became a self-sustaining sport fish that made New Zealand one of the world’s most popular fly-fishing destinations.
They are still doing extremely well there.
But here, in their motherland, climate change and upstream tapping of the many springs that used to make our creeks habitable for young trout, now cause our streams to dry up in the summer. This has drastically depleted our local trout population and resulted in the banning of all trout fishing in local streams for many years now.
So, for now, I must be content to sit here under dreary skies, reading fishing reports of all the Sonoma rainbows being caught halfway round the globe on the Tongariro River.
If I were there today and brought a lovely rainbow trout to my net, I’d have to say, “Hi. You don’t know me, but I’m sort of your great-great-great-great, etc. grandpa from Sonoma. Nice to meet you. I wish you’d come home.”
The annual Fly Fishing Show in Pleasanton starts next Friday, February 22, at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton and runs through Sunday. This is a great show for those who love fly-fishing.
Pleasanton is about an hour and 15-minute drive from Sonoma and the show is well worth the drive. Tickets are $15 per day for adults. Children 6 to 12 $5. Children 5 and under free. Active duty military also free.
For more information go to flyfishingshow.com/pleasanton-ca.
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