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Summer days.
Thu 2nd December, 2010
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The fantastic summer weather continues and once again the Tongariro has been a great place to wet a line. I had the pleasure of guiding a couple of really good anglers on separate days and we had a ball. Each one had very different experience as far as fishing the Tongariro was concerned. Herbert pictured above first fished here in the nineties and although he lives in Austria has made the trip every year since. He is one of the nicest guy’s I have ever met and our day together just flew by...I think Ross is going to let you all know how that went in TRM's Friday Report.
Jamie was a visiting UK fisho on his first ever trip to New Zealand accompanied by his wife and young son and could only sneak away for a half day.They were traveling in a camper van so to save time they parked up the night before in the garden of the bach I use in Turangi.
It can be a tough call sometimes to get your client a fish or two in that limited amount of time but luckily he was a more than competent angler and the fish played ball. We headed down-river first but it just wasn’t happening there so after a fruit-less half hour drove back to the Braids.
 Even though the forecast promised another stunning Turangi day the place was empty and we went straight to the Honey-pot. Jamie soon picked up the casting and high arm mending in this pool and was quickly into a rainbow.
We moved through the whole area pretty quickly swopping from nymphing to dry and dropper set ups and although the fish Jamie landed weren’t huge his smile got bigger and bigger.Then around mid-morning he hooked up to a great looking brown. Despite doing everything "right" and chasing it downstream the hook let go when the fish got into the fast riffles. Jamie ended the half day with five landed and judging by some of his comments during the morning is another Tongariro convert. I tell you as a guide there is no greater buzz than that look on a clients face.
A couple of anglers have asked me recently the set up for the dry and dropper...so I’ll repeat it again. It’s very simple…this is my version but others may do it differently. You can use any large dry that will support two slightly weighted nymphs.The takes can be lightning quick but strike immediately unless they actually go for the dry. Over the last few years I’ve messed about with the spacing between the flies but for me around three feet from the dry to the first nymph and then just over two feet to the second nymph has worked well. But obviously experiment a bit depending on where you are.This week a Cadillac nymph with a woven white caddis below has worked really well on this rig. Best fly for me under the indicator has been a size 14 pheasant tail nymph but tied the more traditional way with the copper wire forming the thorax.
I can hear Ross chuckling now...those of you who are regulars at TRM will know all to well his views on chopping and changing patterns for Tongariro trout...he’ll come round one day.
Be lucky guys
Mike |
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