It is always inspiring to meet people who are passionate about what they are doing, writes John Eichelsheim. For Dave Miller and friend Richard ‘Dick’ Marquand, their passion is saltwater flyfishing, and Dave’s boat – a Tristram 600 Cabriolet called Filly – is set up accordingly.

Dave is an ex-boatbuilder who trained under John Lidgard, while Dick has been a trout fishing guide and fishing writer, among other things. Both now live in Tauranga and enjoy spending their days chasing sportfish with a flyrod on Tauranga’s doorstep, often aboard Dave’s new boat Filly.

We met up with Dave and Dick at Sulphur Point Boat Ramp with a plan to enjoy whatever flyfishing opportunities presented themselves inside Tauranga Harbour while experiencing first-hand Dave’s new Tristram ‘at work’.

A Tristram may not seem an obvious choice for a ‘flats’ boat, one that will spend a lot of time targeting kingfish in shallow water inside the harbour. Most such boats are low-sided and flat bottomed with minimal draft for good stability at rest, but the Tristram 600 Cabriolet has a deep-vee hull and plenty of freeboard…

Nor is the Tristram designed for this style of fishing. Rather, it’s a standard 600 Cabriolet, normally a family-oriented 6m bowrider, modified with a sturdy casting platform factory-fitted over the bow seats and a Minn Kota electric trolling motor up front. Dave also removed the transom seat to create more space in the cockpit.

So why a Tristram? “Well,” said Dave “I wanted a boat for fly-fishing, not only inside Tauranga Harbour but outside as well. It had to be comfortable and safe offshore.” The friends regularly take Filly to fish deeper offshore reefs and pins, places like Penguin Shoals, targeting kingfish and reef species: “Pink maomao are fantastic fun on a flyrod,” enthused Dick, who routinely fishes with three and four-weight fly rods, much lighter than is usual in salt water.

Of course, there were plenty of boat options to choose from, both in fibreglass and aluminium, but after much consideration and a lot of hands-on research the Tristram won out.

“As a boatbuilder I was very impressed with the way Tristram boats are put together. To me they were clearly the best of the bunch in terms of build quality and presentation, which is important to me. In addition, I found Kingsley [Fink] and the team at Tristram Marine extremely accommodating, despite the challenges of Covid.” Dave ordered his boat just prior to Covid, taking delivery in March 2020. He has now owned it for around 18 months.

The Cabriolet 600 has been around for many years. It remains a good-looking, stylish boat, performs as well as ever, and remains popular with customers, so why change a winning formula? There’s not much space on the helm console for a flush-mounted electronics display, so Dave has bracket-mounted his 15-inch Humminbird on the passenger-side dashboard. It is a good solution, since the display is easily seen from the helm or from anywhere in the cockpit.

In an offshore situation, the Tristram certainly meets the brief. The 600 Cabriolet’s quiet, sweet riding, deep-vee hull easily tames choppy seas, and the freeboard is welcome in open water conditions. “We’ve never felt unsafe onboard – and we’ve come home in some pretty big seas,” says Dave.

Casting from the bow platform set on the bowrider seats feels more secure than it would casting from a flush-deck platform – you stand inside the boat, not on top of it.

But what about the flats? Well, petty good there too. Although Filly has a deep vee, it is quite stable to fly-fish from. Even with four of us moving around the boat, it never felt ‘tippy’. Nor does the slightly increased draft (over a flat-bottomed craft) greatly impact Filly’s ability to access shallow water – we explored sandflats in less than a metre of water. And while the casting platform is inside the boat, not on the foredeck, it is still sufficiently raised to make fish spotting easy.

Dick took the wheel when we left the dock and the 175hp Mercury V6 soon had Filly racing across the calm waters of Tauranga Harbour. We didn’t have to go far to find wheeling birds and our first chance at feeding kahawai. Hook-ups came almost immediately, and we spent the next couple of hours chasing birds, taking turns to cast small baitfish flies into the workups. With one angler on the bow and another casting from the cockpit, double hook-ups were common.

Dave had rigged four rods for our session: a heavier #9 for kingfish, a soft Kilwell #6 for kahawai and two of Dick’s ultra-forgiving #4 and #3 models made from fibreglass. Dick is quite an advocate for fibreglass flyrods, which are gaining popularity.

We all enjoyed good sport – a fat Tauranga Harbour kahawai hooked on a #3 fibreglass ‘Butterstick’ flyrod is quite the fight, fully 10 minutes to the boat, as I found out for myself.

Our search for kingfish was less successful. We tried the flats, searching for ‘ray riders’ – kingfish that shadow short tail stingrays, pouncing on any small fish and crustaceans the rays disturb. Unfortunately, Gabrielle had badly affected water clarity and we simply couldn’t see into the water well enough to reliably spot rays. A few casts at navigation buoys with the big rod and a popper fly also proved fruitless.

Thank goodness for the kahawai!

Catching kingfish on the fly is Dick’s favourite thing to do. He often stalks ray riders from the shore, wading out waist-deep into Tauranga Harbour at times. So far, he’s landed 198 kingfish to 22kg, along with countless others from the boat.

We finished our day with another kahawai flurry, then a few more casts at (different) channel markers before winching Filly back onto her premium Enduro trailer. As Dave says, she just the right size – not too big and not too small – the ride is superb, and she’s a great platform for fly-casting. Best of all, Filly has the chops to take you places in comfort and safety no flats boat should contemplate. Just the ticket for a couple of mad-keen fly-fishers with time on their hands.