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Tongariro up ... with more rain to come.
Wed 23rd May, 2018
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It poured down for most of the night and by 5.00am this morning the flow chart had climbed to 222 cumecs. But by the time I took these, they had already fallen to one fifty.
The rain has eased for the time being, but there's more on the way with some heavy falls forecast as we head towards the weekend.
We get these weather patterns around this time every year and if you look at the May reports for the last few years its always the same mix of heavy rain and freshes. This often triggers a temporary improvement in the "fishing". But in the past its always fizzled out until the runs get well underway. Unfortunately in recent years they haven't really started until late June. 
With more rain to come I'll be interested to see what happens over the "Braids" because I'm picking we're going to see a lot more changes there during the next year or two.
After the digger had finished at the Bridge Pool it relocated downriver and scraped out a couple of shallow channels designed to "persuade" more of the river to flow through the "centre" of the Braids. Just like it used to before they did the opposite several years ago.
One is adjacent to the breakthrough below the lower bridge pool and there's another near the left hand side channel below Vera's.
And it wouldn't surprise me at all if the latter eventually disappears altogether.
Since it originally broke through again in 2015 its taken a couple of years for the river to consolidate its new course and there's been a marked improvement in the fishing here over the last eighteen months.
Remember its not that long ago that the whole area looked more like a quarry than a river!
The old Spot X for instance is twice as wide as it was this time last year and with each passing flood the river all through here is increasing in flow strength and depth.
There are already plenty of interesting new spots to check out ... from in front of the lodge all the way down to Reed. And if their latest round of diversions pan out as planned there should be a lot more in the future.
As I wind this up levels are still dropping back and the Tongariro flows are below 130 cumecs. If the forecast is accurate these will probably fluctuate over the next day or two and will almost certainly rise again by the weekend. With plenty of color in the river and a drop in temperature there should be some fish coming through but don't leave it too late before you get back out there.
Tight lines
Mike |
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