Daniel Stuart-Forbes didn’t catch a single ounce on the opening day of whitebait season – yet he’ll never forget it.
The 63-year-old had camped at the river the night before, ready for an early start at a spot he knows well. It’s a popular location for whitebaiters.
Opening day was no different, with equally eager fishermen spaced respectfully around Stuart-Forbes.
“They call it Sock-net Alley,” says Stuart-Forbes.
It was a cold, frosty morning – the sort that precedes a big blue-sky day in Canterbury. Stuart-Forbes was prepared but his mate on the next stand down had forgotten something and decided he’d return home to retrieve it.
“I started cleaning up my breakfast dishes and stuff. And I could hear a fella yelling, ‘Somebody, somebody help me’,” he said.
Initially, he wondered if it was his mate playing a prank, but he could see through some trees that a fellow whitebaiter was in trouble.
“He was about 40m away and I could see his head floating in the water and I thought, ‘f***, that’s a man in the water!’” says Stuart-Forbes.
The man in the water was Warwick ‘Wally’ Inwood. He’s not entirely sure how it all happened, but before he knew it, his waders were filling with water.
“I went head-first straight in,” says Inwood.
“I was wearing chest waders and of course they just filled up like a blimmin’ stone. But actually, they were making me float with my head down. I think the air was trapped down my feet,” he adds.
Inwood isn’t sure how long he was in the water before Stuart-Forbes arrived.
“It seemed like bloody ages for me, but it was only a matter of seconds really,” says Inwood.
Complicating the rescue for Stuart-Forbes was the fact that he’s an amputee, losing part of his leg after a workplace accident.
“I motor off as fast as I could and I was going, hop, step, hop, step, hop, step,” says the grey-bearded Rangiora man.
He grabbed a long pole on the way to Inwood’s rescue.
“I got to the river, and it wasn’t gonna reach, and another fella pulled up and I said, ‘f***, man, I can’t jump in - I’m an amputee. You’ve got to jump in!
“And the best he could come up with was ‘I can’t ... my phone’. So as soon as he said that, I leapt in the river, man, cause he had already gone under a few times,” says Stuart-Forbes.
In water up to his armpits, Stuart-Forbes reached the pole out for Inwood to grab. The water was freezing, and Inwood was struggling. His hand reached for the pole.
“I grabbed it on, I think, bloody near on my last bloody swing at it. I think if I’d missed it, that would have been history. It was so close, mate, so close,” recalls Inwood.
When Stuart-Forbes realised it was he who needed to be the rescuer – he jumped in without hesitation, still in his “good gears” and “disco boots”.
“I like to see people breathing. If I hadn’t have jumped in when I jumped in, mate, there might have been a high chance that I might have had to give him a kiss [resuscitation] and that wasn’t happening,” jokes Stuart-Forbes.
“I would have made the other fella with his phone. He could have done that!”
After getting to shore, Inwood took some time before he could get his breath back.
“I just crouched on the bank trying to get my breath back. It was bloody horrifying,” says Inwood.
Stuart-Forbes made a hot cup of tea and gave it to Inwood to help warm him up. He was still shaking.
Inwood managed to get himself home and Stuart-Forbes had managed to get his new acquaintance’s phone number.
“I rang him to see if he was all right. About 1pm he was still shaking, and he couldn’t warm up and I said, ‘Man, I think you got the shock, you better go see a doctor properly’. So he went to the doctor and got back about 11pm,” says Stuart-Forbes.
The two have spent plenty of time together since. Inwood, 76, has visited Stuart-Forbes at the river most days that he’s there.
“He gave me a nice envelope with some cash and then I told him he didn’t have to do that because I was just happy that he was alive.
“I said, ‘I don’t do s*** like that for money, man. Money doesn’t drive me’. But he still gave me some and I’m very much appreciative of it. He’s a good bugger,” says Stuart-Forbes.
He describes his opening day catch as more of a “catch and release”, but his friend who had left just before the ordeal began, gave him half of his catch.
Inwood is happy to share the story of his brush with death – referring to Stuart-Forbes as “my bloody hero!”.
Stuart-Forbes believes the speed of his movement on the bank was down to alterations he’s made on his prosthetic leg. He’s installed an “ankle” in it.
“Since I’ve modified it, I’ve got spring in my heel and spring in my toes. So, each time I take a step, it’s spring in, spring out. And it can fit gumboots because without the ankle moving, it’s bloody near impossible to get around the corner [of the gumboot].”
He says that prosthetics with a similar function can cost anywhere from $7000 to $70,000.
“Mine costs under $100, bro. With parts I found in my shed. Just bits and pieces of crap,” says Stuart-Forbes.
He’d like his invention to help others.
“I’ve tried to get it out there. They said it could go global, but with New Zealand, we’ve got too much bull**** to go through because it’s medical,” says the part-time inventor.
Since opening day of whitebait season, the going has been a bit slow on the banks of the Kaiapoi River.
“I’ve only got a couple of pounds, but I haven’t been out every day. And it’s not always about the whitebait, it’s about the experience,” says Stuart-Forbes.
His net is full of that, already.
Mike Thorpe is a senior journalist for the Herald, based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.