The following was posted online by Tony Smith in December 2016; republished here for posterity.

As a school lad in the late sixties growing up in Temuka, South Canterbury, we knew and respected that ‘older’ generation and maybe took them for granted a bit as they showed us a few things and happily shared their knowledge. We are now at least that same age and older, and we see and read of those we knew and grew to respect passing on.

Noel Thomas was one of them, a doyen of trout fishing and fly tying in Temuka for his lifetime. Only recently did I hear he had passed away in July of this year, 2016. His fly tying skill was internationally renowned, and as a young lad that chased the odd trout I always imagined Mr. Thomas able to catch a trout out of puddle left by recent rain.

For many years I have always stopped in Temuka any time travelling south to buy some Noel Thomas tied flies. Nostalgia, petit forms of art, doesn’t matter, I will be stopping again in Temuka in the hope there are a few left available to purchase, one more time, for in my mind, no-one tied them or had the knowledge of, or connection to the river, like Temuka’s Noel Thomas.

Photograph by Deborah Aspray

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