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April showers.
Tue 15th April, 2014
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What did I tell you? ... no sooner had I finished writing the words " we probably won't get any proper rain until the latter half of the month " when the clouds rolled in and the skies began to darken.
Well ... it didn't quite happen like that but after threatening to rain all day the heavens finally opened Thursday afternoon and we had a typical April deluge.
I was in the garage tying up a new batch of indicators and the noise was incredible. It was like taking a shower inside a snare drum and when I looked outside a few minutes later a new pond had already formed in front of the man cave door.
It continued to rain for most of the night here in Turangi but its what's happening further upstream that's important. I was fishing with some lads from Wellington the next day so early next morning I rang the Genesis Power Flow line ( 073868113 } but the Tongariro had only risen a few cumecs.
Even so by the time we got on the river around 7.30 am it was already carrying quite a bit of color so on went the globugs and we targeted the edges hoping for a brown.
You'll often see browns near the edges of a river, even if its running clear, especially if they can tuck themselves under the bank or any overhanging trees out of sight of any potential danger.
When we get heavy rain, and the river begins to color up, their view of the outside world is reduced and because they can't see any threat they feel more confident about leaving their hiding places. 
After a good fresh, when the Tongariro looks as if you could plant potatoes in it; I've seen browns taking insects off the surface in newly formed, shallow backwaters just a few meters from where I've been standing.
And just to prove the point, on Konstantin's third drift he suddenly found himself attached to a brown which picked up his orange egg fly in less than 18 inches of water.
Now he'll be the first to admit there was just a little bit of luck involved because he'd actually paused at the end of the drift to retrieve some loose coils of line from around the reel. This allowed the current to swing the globug even closer to the bank and ... wallop !
But it didn't stay in the shallows for long and headed upstream and into the middle of the river. Twice Konstantin got it near the net but it finally had enough and with a final flick of its tail waved farewell !
This is an all too familiar tale and I know I've lost far more browns this year than I've landed ... but ... that's fishing.
It rained quite steadily for the rest of the day and we found the fishing quite hard with lots of juvenile fish hitting the flies. In fact, other than that early brown I don't think we caught a fish over a pound and a half ... but it was the same story for other anglers we spoke to ... just one of those days.
The next morning the guys changed tactics and took their spinning rods up to the Te Whaiau canal and later that day sent me an email with this pic attached "We had a good few strikes from rainbows and browns. We bagged one and hooked another really well but it snapped the line and swam off with the lure just as we were about to land it. Regardless, the whole weekend was fantastic and we'll surely be back."
There's no denying the fishing has been " challenging " the last couple of weeks. But despite that anglers visiting the area still enjoy their time on the water. Especially when they live and work in a city or are from overseas. For them just being on a river like the Tongariro is something they really look forward to and is always appreciated.
A few more anglers around this week probably hoping the rain had encouraged some fresh runs but although there are fish trickling through its important to keep on the move to find them.
Some days there has been just the beginnings of a picket line on both banks of the Bridge Pool and I've seen a few fish get caught early in the morning and again later in the afternoon.
This short stretch of water is worth keeping an eye on even if you have no intention of fishing it because it can give you a pretty good idea of what to expect elsewhere on the river.
Still a lot of juvenile fish getting caught but that won't alter until we get the first big fresh.
I've had some reasonable jacks this week fishing the town pools ... but not many.
And twice in the last seven days or so I've hooked and lost what I think is the same brown, in the same place, in the same pool. There's no way I could ever prove it but its too much of a coincidence. Each time, the indicator dipped and was towed upstream, then across to the opposite bank where we parted company in a tangle of old branches. Gail told me she was walking past there with the dog one morning and watched another angler suffer the same fate ... so who knows.
If like me you prefer to carry a small scissors rather than line snips here's a little tip. I used to have mine just hanging from a zinger on the left side of my vest ... until this happened a few years ago.
I was standing in the river and had stopped to change a fly. The rod was tucked under my left arm which was pressing against my side to hold it in place.
As I began to thread the line through the eye of the fly I inadvertently loosened that sideways pressure and the rod started to slip.
Instinctively I jabbed my arm back into my side to regain my hold on the rod and although I felt a sharp scratch thought no more of it. A couple of minutes later I noticed the water around me was red with blood ... my blood. The scissors had been hanging open and had gone straight through a vein on the inside of my fore-arm.
Luckily we had a first aid kit and were able to stop the bleeding and clean it up but it just goes to show how easily accidents can happen.
After messing about wrapping rubber bands around the blades or pushing a bit of rig tube over the tips I've found the best solution when you're not using them is to simply push the scissors into the middle of your zinger coil.
Now why didn't I think of that before I stabbed myself ?
So the fishing is exactly what you'd expect for the time of year but will gradually begin to improve from now on.
It looks like more April showers for the rest of the week and probably over the Easter weekend and you'd expect this to have a positive effect as far as the fishing is concerned.
If they have got the forecast right ... and that's often a "big if" whenever they try and predict the weather for Turangi then things could be shaping up nicely if you intend fishing over the holiday period.
A few more fish taking an interest in globugs this week and as the spawning runs steadily increase these will become the go to fly for most anglers.
If you want to hedge your bets a good searching rig from now on is to fish a small globug ... and a nymph below the bomb.
But remember to space them so that the gap between the bomb and middle fly is greater than the middle to point fly ... that way you won't get tangles.
Have a great Easter guys.
Tight lines
Mike |
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