A Tribute to Roy Cotter
Roy Cotter from Pahiatua is not here now. He died 9 August 2012 after battling cancer for many months. He was my greatest angler friend. His going leaves a large hole in my life.
I met Roy in the summer of 1974-5 when he came, at Woodville garage owner Eddie Stuart’s suggestion, to see me and my friend Michael, to give us some pointers about catching 'blind' Manawatu trout. I can still see him coming through the gates to the old farm house, rolling a cigarette as he came. For years my family and I holidayed, first in one disused farmhouse and then in a second, on the upper Manawatu River not far from Pahiatua and Woodville. Roy was a hugely knowledgeable fisherman about the nearby rivers, because he’d fished them all his life. Not just that; he was observant, analytical and continually well read. We didn’t always agree. He could be stubborn in holding to a particular opinion but I just used to grin inwardly and move on. His strong views made him interesting.
From that first meeting forward, Roy visited often, joining Marion and me and our daughters Joanne and Robyn for meals and various family activities like kayaking down the river. He helped us too – using his chain saw on a fallen tree, or his hammer and drill on a door or window afflicted by age. Later, when he brought Sonia, she too became our friend and after he married her we had many visits to each others’ places for meals, chats and yarns right through into recent times when we bought a property at Ngaturi on the Makuri River. Then our car just about came to know it’s own way over the gravelled back road from Ngaturi to Kohinui, where Roy and Sonia lived.
When I began to write fishing books in the early 1980s Roy became ‘Bob,' a character in a trilogy that came out over 25 years. And sometimes he also appeared under his own name as an authority. Not only that; he and Sonia read all the books in proof, making suggestions and corrections.
Roy developed an imitative fly he called a Lunker Buster, first magazined in The New Zealand Fly Fisher Issue 12 September 1995. It found its way into books too. It’s in Tony Orman’s, 21 Great New Zealand Trout Waters, (Chapter 9), in my Cast Lightly, (pp 89-90 & 160), and in New Zealand’s Best Trout Flies (pp 56-57 & 59.) But probably it became most widely known because Roy showed it, and demonstrated its use, to anglers from all over the world who came to his door seeking guidance about fishing local rivers. Based on careful looking at fish food and habitat, it's a great fly.
Roy was generous with his time and knowledge, and loyal (in his own words) ‘to those he cared about.’ I will miss him greatly. □
I met Roy in the summer of 1974-5 when he came, at Woodville garage owner Eddie Stuart’s suggestion, to see me and my friend Michael, to give us some pointers about catching 'blind' Manawatu trout. I can still see him coming through the gates to the old farm house, rolling a cigarette as he came. For years my family and I holidayed, first in one disused farmhouse and then in a second, on the upper Manawatu River not far from Pahiatua and Woodville. Roy was a hugely knowledgeable fisherman about the nearby rivers, because he’d fished them all his life. Not just that; he was observant, analytical and continually well read. We didn’t always agree. He could be stubborn in holding to a particular opinion but I just used to grin inwardly and move on. His strong views made him interesting.
From that first meeting forward, Roy visited often, joining Marion and me and our daughters Joanne and Robyn for meals and various family activities like kayaking down the river. He helped us too – using his chain saw on a fallen tree, or his hammer and drill on a door or window afflicted by age. Later, when he brought Sonia, she too became our friend and after he married her we had many visits to each others’ places for meals, chats and yarns right through into recent times when we bought a property at Ngaturi on the Makuri River. Then our car just about came to know it’s own way over the gravelled back road from Ngaturi to Kohinui, where Roy and Sonia lived.
When I began to write fishing books in the early 1980s Roy became ‘Bob,' a character in a trilogy that came out over 25 years. And sometimes he also appeared under his own name as an authority. Not only that; he and Sonia read all the books in proof, making suggestions and corrections.
Roy developed an imitative fly he called a Lunker Buster, first magazined in The New Zealand Fly Fisher Issue 12 September 1995. It found its way into books too. It’s in Tony Orman’s, 21 Great New Zealand Trout Waters, (Chapter 9), in my Cast Lightly, (pp 89-90 & 160), and in New Zealand’s Best Trout Flies (pp 56-57 & 59.) But probably it became most widely known because Roy showed it, and demonstrated its use, to anglers from all over the world who came to his door seeking guidance about fishing local rivers. Based on careful looking at fish food and habitat, it's a great fly.
Roy was generous with his time and knowledge, and loyal (in his own words) ‘to those he cared about.’ I will miss him greatly. □
Postscript: Exactly two months after Roy died, Sonia passed away. Visiting the Pahiatua area will never be the same again.
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