Nine days, one fly rod, and no one else for company. The newest episode from Andy's Fishing Wild Cook trades the usual day-trip for a full solo thru-hike across New Zealand's rugged Nelson Lakes backcountry, living off the rivers and the land along the way.
Andy set the scene early. The mission was to follow a river, climb a range, repeat, then cross a rocky pass near 1,800 metres before rejoining the Te Araroa trail. "This time we are definitely going to catch some fish," he said, armed with a swag of new flies for water that draws fly anglers from around the globe.
He was refreshingly honest about his pace. "You can call me Andy the human snail," he laughed as bikes and scooters overtook him on the road, before adding a more sober note once the trail began: "Traveling by foot is very slow, and if you make a mistake, you pay for it."
True to the channel's name, fishing shared the screen with foraging. Andy identified edible bush foods such as bullrush and, for the very first time, set a possum trap baited with peanut butter, freely admitting he had little idea what he was doing and that his chosen spot looked unpromising. It was experimentation in the name of self-reliance rather than a sure thing.
When the river delivered, the kitchen followed. He scaled, gutted and chopped a trout into a pot with noodles, miso and olive oil, a hard-earned backcountry feed. He also mused on the gamble of river choice, reflecting that a famous river is not always the productive one and that, without rain, he might have done better on familiar water.
The final days turned into a test of logistics as much as angling. A failing camera forced him onto his phone just as his power bank died and his battery crept toward 40 per cent with three days still to walk. He weighed the steep Fowler Pass shortcut, walked by barely one person a month, against a longer but safer track, determined not to set off his emergency beacon. "If you see this video, I made it out," he told the lens.
Between freezing nights, dodgy gear and the constant maths of food and battery, the episode became a study in wilderness self-sufficiency, where a wild trout on the fly is both sport and supper, and where simply walking out after nine days is its own reward.