We had been looking forward to our chopper mission into the wilderness. We hooked up with a crowd called Heli-Sika who dropped us to a remote river, chartered our gear further upstream to a hut and would then collect us further up the following day at a pre-arranged rendezvous point on the river.
It was pretty wild in the chopper as the wind was howling through the endless valleys. The fishing opportunities must also be infinite around here! When they dropped us off, I couldn’t help but feel a little at home with a variety of beech trees bearing a striking resemblance to our myrtles back home. One species in particular must be very closely related.
It didn’t take us long to rig up and make our way into the crystal clear water and Pauly soon spotted one. This would be the first of several fish behaving badly.
Some would ignore everything and others were quite happy to take the fly.
In any case, it was an amazing location and we encountered a few fish in the 8lb range that we couldn’t get a fly to due to the vertical cliff faces with dense rainforest from which we spotted them!
It seems so long ago now but we all managed a few good fish in the 2-4lb mark and Shauno was on fire with lots of fish coming to hand.
Paul managed to tempt a couple of fish that would have been over 5lb and displayed amazing colours. One fish in particular came to hand as we could almost hear the echoes of the chopper on its way to collect us – Good timing Paulos!
The lads were towelling them up using their Tonic Eyewear and after trying them on, I was very impressed. My personal highlight was just being in this amazing location, a days’ walk from anywhere and surrounded by true beauty.
Snaring some great fish was a bonus and the whole mission was my favourite aspect to our NZ adventure. We certainly didn’t encounter huge numbers of fish out the back but the quality of these rainbows was more than sufficient.
We were told that monster browns lurk in the right locations but we didn’t see any. Both dries and nymphs scored fish fairly evenly between them but landing a couple on my home-tied dries was satisfying!
Of course after returning from such an epic journey, all we wanted to do was get drunk and find a titty bar or something. We didn’t do that, but it sounded tough. Instead we opted for some dirty take-away on the way home at some ridiculous hour and managed to slide a beer or two in before falling in a heap ... for many hours.
In next weeks final part the boys keep busy on the Tongariro and visit some of the other rivers in the Taupo fishery.
Meanwhile the Tongariro again demonstrated how difficult it is to second guess the week ahead. I think anglers were expecting better things after the small fresh we had but its not fill your boots time yet and some went away feeling a little bit disappointed.
It was a case of being in the right place and adapting to the conditions and those anglers that know the river and put in the effort were usually rewarded. The angler pictured above was fishing below the bridge and had opted for a wet-line in the slightly colored conditions. Just as I passed a trout hit the fly and his reel began to scream as the fish took off downstream like a speed boat.
As he chased after it trying to regain line he shouted over to me " its like the good ole days " and went on to eventually land a very nice silver rainbow which looked to be around four pounds.
Best mates Nigel and Angus had managed to sneak away from their busy lives in Auckland for a couple of days chill time on the river. They got away from the car parks and despite the heavy showers had a ball ... both landing personal best rainbows.
And a couple of friends of mine had a good day on the middle river scoring an 8lb brown and a mixed bag of recovering and fresh run rainbows. Most of the fish fell for the bomb ... something that's often reported at this time of year.
With more rain or showers forecast and a drop in temperatures things should keep ticking along nicely. The river is carrying a little more volume and looks perfect ... so fingers crossed for the long weekend.
