Jack Hepburn’s Fighting Spirit

Jack Hepburn’s Fighting Spirit

By Lyn McKinnon

Eyes honed to spot a Messerschmitt fighter in the skies over Europe make Jack Hepburn of Hammner Springs a formidable enemy of the fish in hiding.

For the last fifty years, since returning to live in North Canterbury after four years in the Air Force after World War II, he has been a fanatical fisherman.

Approaching eighty years of age, Jack Hepburn is still fighting fit. He puts this down to the almost daily exercise around the rivers and lakes of North Canterbury.

Though he’s recently given up his status as a ranger for Fish and Game North Canterbury, he’s an expert on the Clarence, Waiau and Hurunui Rivers. His dusty vehicle is a regular sight as he heads along shingle roads towards high country waters.

Born in Rangiora, he grew up on the family farm at Mt Somers, dairying, running sheep, and cropping, until in 1940 he joined the RNZAF at the age of 21. He trained in Tiger Moths at Taieri, Dunedin, until leaving for Ontario, Canada, where he graduated to Harvards.

Then, with five other air force personnel, he crossed the Atlantic on the Nanking, spending several fog-bound days in Reykjavik, Iceland. He was then stationed in Bournemouth before being sent to 504 Squadron near Belfast, and later to West Africa, where he flew his Hurricane aircraft on a 25-hour journey from Nigeria to Khartoum and Cairo.

After a spell with 127 Squadron in Israel, he served in the Western Desert during 1942-43, was sent to Cyprus as Officer Commanding, and then returned to the desert as Flight Commander of 33 Squadron.

The logbook he leafs through today is a witness to his many operations and dogfights, but he says much of it is forgotten.

“You really only remember the funny things. We were defending the front line from Stukkas, and it was a bit hair-raising at times, but I never got shot down.”

“When I first went on patrols, someone would say, ‘Look out at ten o’clock’. I couldn’t see much to start with, but after a while, when you have bullets whistling around your ears, you’d get to see the other planes – just through self-preservation.”

He was sent back to England in 1944. “I took a bit crook with ulcers, and they decided I’d had enough, so I left for home on 25 July 1944.

After being discharged in 1945, he married Ruth. Ruth had spent the war years as a land girl and entered the Forest Service as a trainee ranger. Hanmer Springs was to be his home from then on, as he took various jobs, including shop work, operating the telephone exchange, and taxi-driving. He retired in 1980 after working at Queen Mary Hospital for 20 years.

Most people today know him as a long-serving ranger, but he was not always a legal fisherman.

“As a child, I used to tickle fish and poach them, but when David Stavert, a local, found out I’d shot a fish, he offered me a rod if I’d stop the poaching.”

“Ruth says now, he didn’t know what he was doing. But as soon as I got the rod, it was me that was hooked.”

He fished a lot with Dr Tom Harrison, the Medical Superintendent of QMH, and when Ranger Bill Rippinggale retired in 1948, Jack Hepburn was asked to take on the job.

“He advised me to remember I had to live in the place, but I never had any trouble. Really, it’s just a deterrent, although there are probably plenty of people fishing without a licence these days.”

His keen eyes have been more tuned to distinguishing the shadowy shapes of trout than tracking down miscreants.

You’ve got to have Polaroid glasses when you’re spotting fish, he says.

“Look for something that’s just slightly different – a shadow that doesn’t look natural. Then it’s a matter of concentrating to see whether it moves.”

He’s had so much practice that people like eye specialist Dr Lindsay Burn ask him for tips.

The fish population now is more elusive than ever, he says.

One year, he caught 275 trout, and now he’d be lucky to catch 40.

“The fishing pressure is so much greater. In those days, you could go out and see no one else.”

He likes fishing the Maruia, Hope, Boyle, Lewis, and Doubtful Rivers. The Clarence hasn’t been stocked for about 25 years and is now pretty well fished out because of its accessibility by road.

There have been great years, though. He and local Brian Pool spent a whole season catching huge trout weighing ten to twelve pounds, when there was a plague of mice.

“We opened up a couple, and one had eleven mice inside, the other nine. It was remarkable that with stomachs as full as that, they still took a nymph.”

Local knowledge is a big factor in success. He had no luck fishing the Mataura until he found out fish took only the smaller flies, and at Aparima, he found a small black fly called a Priest was the answer.

In his own district, the Waiau and Hurunui are good salmon rivers, he says. Last year, he caught 12 before Ruth said “Enough”, and this year he’s up to his usual standard.

He recently pulled two fish out of a hole after locals had fished it all day.

“I put it down to luck. It’s happened to me, too – you can easily decide that a patch of water is no good, but you’ve got to learn where they might sit.”

Salmon are lazy, and they’ll lie where they don’t have to work so hard. You can’t always go by the river; sometimes you can’t just tell what’s underneath the surface.”

Many people fish the holes, but in hot weather, salmon will sit in oxygenated water in rapids.

Catch and release of trout gives him a lot of pleasure without the depletion of the resource. Working with John Gemmell, from River View Lodge, Hanmer Springs, he helps to bring this experience to many overseas visitors.

His biggest and best catch in recent years was a 15-pound trout caught in the Waiau in 1995.

“I let it go, and no harm was done, because John saw it in the same place a fortnight later.”

Guiding visitors to exciting catches has the odd, fortunate spin-off. Jack Hepburn now uses an Orvis boron-graphite rod, with a rosewood handle, left behind by a grateful American who notched up a tally of 17 trout.

He also has a Cortland 8’6″ carbon fibre rod, and says the old cane rods of the early days were like telegraph poles in comparison.

“These new rods are beautiful to use, and my advice to anyone going fly-fishing is – Don’t buy cheap.”

“Get an expert to fit you out with balanced gear. It may be expensive, but too often people buy cheap gear, then get disappointed because it won’t handle the job, and give up.”

“Go to an expert for tips on casting and where to look. Cheap rods have an action like wet spaghetti, and remember, old rods and new ones are like a Model T Ford compared to Rolls-Royces.”

Trout Flies:

The four fundamental dry flies are Love’s Lure, Coch-y-bondhu, Greenwells Glory and Royal Wulff, he says.

The Half Back and Hare and Copper are his basic nymphs, and for salmon, he sticks to a Z spinner.

And the quality most people consider essential for a trout fisherman – patience – is not one he rates in himself.

“My son Mike always says I’m a contradiction – I catch fish, but I’m also impatient. But you’ve got to think like a fish, analyse the conditions, and as long as the norwester isn’t too strong, I can still
cast into it pretty well.”

Postscript

Jack Hepburn passed away on 8 April 2013 at the age of 94 years.