Southern farmer and fisherman Denis Nyhon is remembered as a hard worker, passionate about improving the land and seizing an opportunity.
After a more than four-year battle with pancreatic cancer, he died at home on Long Gully Station, near Tarras, last month, aged 69.
About 800 people attended his funeral on the station and Richie Hurring, of Balclutha, gave a eulogy on his friend ‘‘Den’’.
Denis Nyhon was born in December 1955, the youngest of Frank and Mirla Nyhon’s four children.
The family lived in a house behind the shops in the main street of Milton.
Time spent after school included balancing a chainsaw on the handlebars of his bicycle to cut scrub on a farm in Milton for $30 an acre.
Cutting scrub was ‘‘way more fun than a paper run’’, Mr Hurring said.
Mr Nyhon loved the concept of ‘‘the harder you work, the more you get paid’’ and he often told his children and grandchildren ‘‘nothing comes for nothing’’.
Nuns told him staying on to sit School Certificate would be a waste of everyone’s time, so he ended his formal education at 15.
Hunting and fishing shop owner Allan Millar offered him a job as an apprentice gunsmith in Milton and also introduced him to clay target shooting, a sport which became a lifelong passion.
His wins included the South Island two-man clay target title with his late friend Barney Begg and the prize included a trip for the pair to compete in Wagga Wagga, Australia.
He was a life member of the Wanaka Gun Club and Wanaka Rodeo Club, suppling grazing and 14 years of sponsorship to the rodeo club.
Through clay target shooting, Mr Nyhon met Keith Murdoch, who had an ‘‘eye for an investment’’ and when Mr Nyhon accrued some money, the pair co-owned commercial buildings in Balclutha and Gore.
As an apprentice gunsmith, Mr Nyhon was paid $20 a week, a lot less than his friends who worked at Finegand meat processing plant, near Balclutha. He got a job in the Finegand laundry and was paid $120 a week.
After a season at Finegand, he went on holiday to Australia and got a job as a ‘‘legger’’, butchering the legs of carcasses at a meat works in Fremantle.
In the off season, he worked on fishing boats for Allan Dunford and Marty Taiaroa trawling off the east coast.
Mr Nyhon got his skipper’s ticket and when Mr Taiaroa was on holiday in Christchurch, seized an opportunity to skipper a small boat and ‘‘fill it with fish’’.
‘‘Marty was so impressed, he asked Den to stay on. This was the start of Den working with Otakou Fisheries and skippering many different boats,’’ Mr Hurring said.
Another of his mentors was Otakou Fisheries’ board member and lawyer Hugh Ross, ‘‘who helped him navigate tempting investments’’.
An example was when Mr Nyhon once considered investing in a pub.
Mr Ross warned him to avoid the opportunity as ‘‘a fisherman with a pub is like a rabbit locked in a glasshouse’’.
Fishing expeditions for Otakou Fisheries included targeting tuna on the West Coast and trawling in the Catlins.
‘‘Den knew the Catlins like the back of his hand, it was his playground,’’ his friend recalled.
He lived in a caravan at the Pounawea campground and owned a Ford Zephyr Mark IV.
He became a farm owner after paying $260,000 cash for a 360ha farm in Wangaloa, near Kaitangata in South Otago.
About a year later he bought another farm, a 320ha property in Hillend, South Otago
He caught crayfish from boat Capricorn in Milford Sound and shared running the farms with fishing mate Stan Geary.
Mr Nyhon sold his two farms to buy Long Gully Station in Tarras and stopped fishing to focus on his love of farming.
Long Gully Station expanded after he bought neighbouring property Deep Creek.
Farming was tough, a time of footrot, drought and high interest rates, Mr Hurring said.
‘‘Going backwards was not in Den’s DNA and he worked extra hard and knew things would come right.’’
When one of his former fishing boats Miss Stewart Island was offered for sale, he bought it and transported it to Long Gully Station for a spruce up.
‘‘She looked like new, like a lamb but she was still a mutton,’’ Mr Hurring said.
In Milford Sound, he noticed fishermen were driving flash new trucks.
‘‘He thought things are looking bloody good for the cray fishermen.’’
He tendered for a portion of CRA8 and won it.
CRA8 is the largest and southernmost of New Zealand’s commercial rock lobster fishing zones, from the Catlins in the east to Bruce Bay north of Haast in the west, and includes Stewart Island and The Snares.
He sold Long Gully Station to Bendigo Station owner John Perriam to return to fishing.
After a couple of seasons crayfishing, he ordered a new boat and called her The Southern Legend.
The boat was built in Fremantle and Mr Nyhon and a crew sailed it to Bluff via Tasmania.
Fishing fulltime, he bought any crayfish quota on sale and expanded the successful business
‘‘His success is a reflection of a drive and an ability to seize opportunities. He was a fair man who paid his bills and expected others to do the same.’’
He married Sharlene (nee Meikle) in 2011.
A sign at the entrance of his home states: ‘‘A fisherman lives here with the greatest catch of his life’’.
Other achievements included getting his private helicopter licence in 2009.
The helicopters he owned included a Robinson R22, Robinson R44, two Hughes 500s and a Squirrel.
At the funeral, Mrs Nyhon said she loved going on flying missions and mustering with her husband.
‘‘I’m going to miss it,’’ she said.
Mr Hurring said Mr Nyhon bought back Long Gully Station in the early 2010s and returned to farming fulltime and his son Shane skippered The Southern Legend.
The income from his fishing business helped him make improvements on Long Gully including buying neighbouring farms, refencing, installing pivot irrigators and new bores.
‘‘If it was bent, it was replaced. He loved his farm and his passion was his improvements. He had a severe dislike for rabbits, pigs, gorse and scrub.’’
He was a man of opportunities, Mr Hurring said.
‘‘An incredibly gifted man, farming, fishing, flying, he topped them all.’’
Billy Dixon, who spoke at the funeral, worked at the freezing works with Mr Nyhon in early 1970s and helped him on a commercial fishing expedition in the Catlins.
He said Mr Nyhon helped many people, including himself, enter the fishing industry and get ‘‘saltwater in the blood’’.
John Perriam said Mr Nyhon had been both a great mate and an inspiration with what he had achieved. The name of your fishing boat says it all — Southern Legend. You are a legend Den Den,’’ Mr Perriam said.
Mr Nyhon is survived by his wife Sharlene and children Shane, Kelly, Tess and step children Ayla and Cameron and grandchildren Emilia, Brooke, Ivy, Ashlyn, Bowie, Millie and Luca.
