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Easter Weekend Report
Tue 26th April, 2011
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Compared to previous years angling pressure this Easter wasn’t too bad. Saturday seemed the busiest day and a lot of anglers, me included decided on the same game plan…to get away from the car parks and concentrate on the middle and upper river. Despite walking to some of the more remote stretches it was the easily accessed Braids that came up trumps most days. There was a definite international feel out there and over the weekend I met fisho’s young and old from all over the world keen to try their luck on the famous Tongariro.
Once again it was a tough few days, most of the anglers I spoke to were fairly good humored about it and were just enjoying their time on the river. Those who put in the hard yards and kept on the move generally did best. As I’ve mentioned despite fishing plenty of normally good water upriver it was the afternoon visits to the Braids that paid off.With the river still low and clear a couple of naturals suspended under a big indicator dry fly in water up to about four feet deep was still a good option. Switching between this and a more conventional nymphing rig for the deeper spots kept a few fish coming.
Every so often someone ties up a pattern that just seems to consistently catch trout and Marcel’s Olive Bead head Emerger is one of them. From memory I first spoke about this fly last year when the number of browns that were taking it began to mount up. Since then with the continuing low river levels and mild temperatures trout are still going for this awesome little fly, especially when its fished as part of a dry and dropper set up. As the weather cools down it will become less effective but I will continue using it until the takes start drying up. I’ll have to stock up again because I’ve lost count of the number given away to other anglers when they have asked what I’m using.
This is another of those nothing looking flies that in this case represents a caddis emerger a favourite food item that trout love. When wet it has a really natural profile and good colour. But I think the clincher is the soft Partridge hackle that not only gives movement but suggests the swept back legs and trapped air of the natural that fish find irresistible.
The first chapter of Gary Borger’s excellent book Designing Trout Flies explains what a trout sees:
"The photoreceptive layer, or retina, of the trout's eye contains both rod and cone cells. The rods form only a black and white image; the cones are sensitive to color. The quality of the image produced by the retina depends upon the packing of the rods and cones; the denser the packing, the more detailed the image. In the trout's eye, the cells are packed rather loosely, and the image is of what we would consider rather poor quality. In fact, recent scientific experiments indicate that the human eye has about 14 times the resolving power of the trout's eye (see Byrnes, 1990). And thank goodness for that. If its vision were as good as ours, the fish would never take even our most perfectly crafted flies because no real creature has a hook dangling out of its rear and a long chunk of monofilament sticking out of its nose. The trout's eye can detect relative size, overall silhouette (shape), and broad color patterns. But while the retina does not form a highly detailed image, it is extremely sensitive to contrast and motion. Such sensitivity can be crucial in fly fishing: a trout will often take a rather crude-looking dry fly if it's presented drag free but reject the same fly if it's dragging. And, such sensitivity can be significant in fly design."
This illustrates why some of the most popular and successful flies are effective despite not being perfect representations of the natural insect.
The whole chapter can be read at www.finefishing.com and Gary Borger is one of several featured angling authors.
More rain and South Easterlies are forecast although exactly how much rain is always difficult to predict The river is steadily rising and presently at over fifty cumecs if this continues it will put paid to most anglers plans.
The old saying "every cloud has a silver lining" comes to mind. I don't normally try and second guess how the Tongariro is going to fish because this river has a habit of biting you on the bum.But I have a feeling after this fresh we may have turned the corner…famous last words!
Tight Lines Guy’s
Mike |
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