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Great to get back on the river.
Wed 18th December, 2013
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With our vacation over before we knew it and then having to catch up on three weeks gardening ... it was great to get back on the river.
I spent the week on the town and middle stretches and the fishing has been pretty good.
Things are much easier than when I last fished. The trout are spread more evenly and most of them have recovered quickly after spawning and are in great shape. As an added bonus there's still the odd silver hen turning up too.
A few splashy rises during the day but I stuck with caddis pupa on the long dry and dropper or " white caddis " on the nymphing set-up.
Noticeably more browns around than a few weeks ago and its worth targeting them now. There are well known spots that consistently throw up good browns every year so keep your eyes peeled when you fish these stretches.
I spotted a couple as I approached the head of one pool ... but the first fish I landed wasn't quite what I was hoping for.  
Just as the flies beneath the dry began sinking towards their intended target ... the baby brown pictured above came from nowhere and grabbed the middle nymph.
Of course as I played the little one, the commotion spooked the other two and they scarpered into the safety of deeper water.
But fish are simple creatures and according to my darling are a bit like husbands ... not only simple... but useless at multi - tasking !
They can't eat and be scared at the same time. So with that in mind I moved to the tail of the pool and switched rods for half an hour as I nymphed my way back towards the head.
Sure enough by the time I got back up there one of them had finished being scared and had returned to its feeding station.
A few casts later {after changing rods again}
I was slipping and sliding all over the rocks as I tried to keep up with this brown and regain some line as it swam back to the lake !
 
As we head towards Christmas, angling pressure is pretty quiet at the moment. Probably because families are gearing up for the festivities ... but that usually changes just after the big day when Dad's redeem the "brownie points" they earned.
The angler above was one of the few I came across and was fishing opposite me in Judges late one morning.
This is a great spot if you're a leftie or don't fancy walking too far and nearly always throws up a fish or two ... but it can be a little slippery underfoot so be careful.
More warm humid weather forecast with a little bit of a cool down for a couple of days then some rain here and there over the holidays.
It'll be interesting to see what effect this has on the cicadas because the hot weather over the weekend has really got them chirping this week ... but more on them next time.
Before I forget, that same hot weather sparked off some pretty spectacular lightning displays in the skies all around Turangi which as it turns out had a bit of an unexpected affect.
I was intrigued with the sharp downward spike in the river flow graph on the weekend so emailed Genesis. I had this reply yesterday :
Hi Mike,
I assume the spike you are talking about is the drop in flow that occurred on Saturday afternoon (14th Dec). This drop in flow was a result of a severe thunderstorm which produced lightning which struck the high voltage cables that feed out of the Rangipo Power Station.
This caused the station to trip off and then mechanical protections to operate. The result of this was a period of time where flow through the power station was reduced to zero and an associated drop in flow at the Tongariro River at downstream Poutu Intake site occurred.
It was a rare situation and one that is attempted to be avoided but is accounted for in our resource consents.
If you have any further questions feel free to contact me on the details below.
Regards,
Phil Goulter
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I'll sign off with more of this weeks fishy pics.
Tight Lines Guys
Mike |
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