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Hit or miss...
Wed 21st March, 2018
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Not much to report because although the fishing is improving it continues to be pretty hit or miss on the Tongariro ... even if you move around.
There are still a lot of juvenile rainbows in the river and if you're using small patterns under the indicator you'll inevitably hook a few during the day. For a few weeks now you'll have noticed their splashy rises {often when there's nothing obvious hatching at the time] and its a fair bet they're taking passion vine hoppers.
There are some better rainbows showing up and of course more browns but for the majority of anglers if you're getting three or four fish a day then you are doing well.
I prefer to look for browns when its like this.
 
When I first began fishing the river there used to be a bit of an old wives tale doing the rounds that browns wouldn't take globugs. Well, plenty of anglers have disproved that one over the years. I went walkabout on the middle river the other day and caught these two an hour or so apart in the same pool.
Too be honest I thought at first they may have been the same fish. Because in the past I've caught browns and then returned the next day and caught the same fish again. However it is unlikely you'd tempt one twice in an hour.
But there again I had my reasons because both were caught in roughly the same spot, both fish were a similar size and each one of them leapt several times when hooked.
You can also see both of them were caught on an orange jelly egg. One in the top jaw the other in the lower.
It wasn't until I got home and compared the photos that I could see the coloration and markings were different.
I've been quietly getting around all the changes caused by the series of freshes we've had and this time it was the turn of the Stag. I could see from the TLB things had altered but now that the track has been re-cut on the other side you can again access to the TRB of the pool.
I'd emailed Dave Conley some time ago to let him know most of the old track had been washed out and within a very short time the track maintenance team had been up there and sorted it out. They've done a great job. Re-routing it in parts so its well away from the rivers edge. And widening it to prevent those blackberry canes from "shaking hands" across the path for a little while.
The pool has changed quite a lot but this has been going on for sometime. Since the start of the year its become much wider and its almost completely merged with the small no name pool above it, so its also much longer.
When I first got in there {just after they'd repaired the track} there wasn't a foot-print to be seen anywhere and I had a great few hours fishing. But when I returned two days later I never had a touch! ... typical Tongariro at this time of year. 
As the weeks fly by and we head further into Autumn fish are more likely to move into the rivers to spawn. One of the well known triggers that often encourages this, is rain. I don't know what it was like in the headwaters but It tamped down locally for most of the night and the flows did increase by a few cumecs. Looking at the week ahead there's more on the way and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see a big improvement because anglers have been catching a few freshies. I know its still early, but whatever happens better times are not far away, and this lean spell will soon be forgotten about.
  It took a long time for the color to drop out and there was obviously still a lot of sediment "hanging" in the water right up until last weekend.
For most of the week we've been back to that nice chalky green color that anglers love. And when you've been lucky enough to drop on a few fish all methods are working.
Globugs have been worth a shot and the Czech nymph has saved the day for me on a couple of occasions.
A mixture of sunshine and showers for the rest of the week with more persistent rain towards the end of next week.
Keep at it guys
Mike |
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