Trout fishing in New Zealand with the Draken Kruger SE
Jason Marsden“I’m off fishing next week.” “Right I’ll overnight it to you.” Timing is everything, and this holds especially true in the horological world. Mike Blythe, founder of Draken Watches, had just received the first of his updated Kruger model, the Kruger SE, set for release on September 1, and there was a story that needed telling. Besides a week of fishing with a couple of mates in my native New Zealand, I was also due to visit my pistol club, so the watch would have a pretty good real-world workout finished off with some extreme recoil-delivered shock treatment.
Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Mike originally hails from South Africa. The Draken brand name pays homage to the Drakensberg, Dragons’ Mountains in South Africa, while the Kruger model name is after Paul Kruger, President of the South African Republic from 1883 until 1900, whose name also appears on the Krugerrand gold coin.
Draken Watches customers often receive a handwritten note from Mike included with their watch. This is the true mark of a microbrand and adds to the purchase and ownership experience, a customer having direct communication and interaction with the brand’s founders.
Mike comes from a background as a User Interface designer, he knows how things should look and work. This sits alongside his strong brand story and weaves in nods to some of his favourite watch brands such as Oris, Seiko and Sinn. Draken offers an array of watches that are well designed and functional, with a great build quality and some well thought out packaging and extras.
The next day the watch arrived, and I was immediately impressed with the packaging. No plastic to be seen, a wooden box containing a molle pouch (great for your phone when out in the field). Inside a laser-engraved board holds the watch on the bracelet along with extra spring bars and a Zulu NATO strap.
The first thing that strikes you is the finish. Grade 2 titanium, more corrosion-resistant than grade 5 but slightly softer, features a hard surface coating, boosting the scratch resistance to a whopping 1200HV. This coating alters the normal grey silver titanium to an almost aluminium look. Without brushing or polishing the titanium case, the bracelet and 316L stainless-steel clasp all feature the same matt bead-blasted finish.
The titanium ensures what is a very solid looking watch, with its bevelled three section engineer style bracelet, wears very light on the wrist. To fit my 19cm wrist I removed one link, being careful not to cross thread the stainless screw pins in the softer titanium and adjusted the clasp to its smallest setting. The quick-change pins included in the bracelet and spares for the NATO ensure an easy swap between the two and reflect the careful thought that has gone into the watch.
One of the Draken trademark designs is the tapered case, and this adds an interesting element and improves comfort for what is a substantial 44mm watch
My favourite element is the knurled crown that features a lumed logo. This looks great and whilst being well protected by the crown guards is still very easy to unscrew and access the setting functions of the Seiko VK67 movement, good for +- 20s/month and a three year battery life.
The Kruger SE is a more serious chronograph than the original Kruger that utilises the VK63 movement. An additional sub dial now offers mission-capable, 12 hour recording with minutes, running seconds and a centre second chronograph hand that sweeps in 1/5 second steps. Being a mecha-quartz movement. The chronograph buttons have a great feel and the hands snap back to zero when resetting rather than advancing around the dials as occurs in a quartz chronograph. The date window has also been relocated from 6 to 4.30 avoiding the previous sub dial clash. One minor downside common to chronos is, with the solid sword hands, sometimes the sub dials will be partially obscured. On that note I probably would have liked full-minute indices on the minute tracking sub dial as per the alternate Kruger model but in all other regards this is a step up in chronograph functionality.
The slightly domed internally AR coated sapphire crystal flows into the ceramic 120 snappy click uni- directional bezel which features a great crenelated notch outer grip and is fully lumed. Overnight the lume on both the dial and bezel remained readable into the small hours of the morning.
A serious 300m water resistance is achieved by the use of long life Viton gaskets so confidence around water is assured and there were certainly no issues during my regular fish-related dunkings.
My week’s fishing was based out of the township of Turangi, in the North Island of New Zealand. This included the world renowned trout river, the Tongariro, as well as half a day out on Lake Taupo jigging for trout with the aptly named Whiskery Mike on his very well equipped boat. On our first day of river fishing we utilised the services of local guide, Jason Creel, to give us the inside line on the best areas and techniques. Following the very recent heavy rains the river and streams dropped and cleared, this spurred the fish, who had been biding their time in the lake, to make their way upstream and as a result we were rewarded with regular strikes from 4lb+ fish with a good proportion landed, photographed and subsequently returned to continue their way upstream.
Throughout the week’s fishing the Draken Kruger performed flawlessly. Similarly there was no sign of time keeping disturbance at the shooting range, even with the heavy recoiling .45, which I would not subject any of my pure mechanical watches to.
If you are looking for a well thought out and designed microbrand tool watch then check out the Draken range.
The Draken Kruger SE pricing and availability:
The Draken Kruger SE is NZD$679 excluding GST. Available at www.drakenwatches.com