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Nothing much has changed.
Thu 9th June, 2011
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Update Tuesday 15th June 5.00 am.
The Tongariro is currently flowing at 37.6 cumecs and slowly falling. The conditions are spot on and there should be lots of happy anglers around however its still pretty quiet on the river. Reasonable numbers of fish around yesterday and the few anglers I met had all caught. Cloudy start today so no frost but still a bit nippy first thing. More rain and strong winds are forecast for the weekend especially Saturday. This will get a few more moving but ideally we need the temperatures to drop and stay down. Heading upriver this morning so I'll let you know.
Report up-to 9th June 2011
Nothing much seems to have changed over the last week as fish numbers slowly increase and small pods continue to race through. But with Ross suffering from chronic writers cramp and unable to use his arms unless of course he's fishing I thought I'd better update you.
The latter part of the holiday weekend was fairly busy with anglers spread throughout most of the river and if you found yourself in the right place at the right time with the right fly you were in with a chance of some very nice rainbows or even a good brown. Angling pressure tailed off significantly by the start of the new week and over the last few days it has been minimal. Those that made the effort and got up early to be “first in” were rewarded with a fish or two and this local insomniac who keeps on beating me to Judges was into his third as Jake and I arrived. Richard went on to land two more and by 9.30 a.m. was on his way home with a limit bag. It was interesting talking to him because the killer fly which he had invented a few days earlier looked remarkably similar to the one that I’ll mention later. With the whole place to myself except for an angler on the opposite bank I’d love to tell you that I cleaned up. But I only managed two plus a brown that too be honest was a little bit tired, it threw in the towel as soon as I put a bend in the rod and was released after a quick pic. It wasn't really happening so I didn’t stay long and walked back to the truck. After grabbing a coffee and all the local news at Shaz’s I headed up to Cicada. The car-park was empty but there were two anglers in the Stag who I could see were carrying a couple of fish. The Cicada pool proved to be a waste of time so I had a few chucks in the tail of the Stag and then moved on upriver. Much later that same afternoon I was inevitably drawn back to the Braids where I was joined by one other angler who was wet-lining.
This place has been pretty solid for weeks and if you’re prepared to experiment a little and ditch the indicator occasionally, it’s possible to take a few fish here. While working my way up the right hand by-pass the big dry fly suddenly disappeared as a trout grabbed one of the nymphs suspended below. Before I could even react the fish shot upriver like a rocket. It was several very exciting minutes later before I could get this one on the bank and was the best scrap I’ve had for a while. As you can see by the images some of the fish over the last couple of days have been in great condition. With the jacks displaying their full spawning colors they are now really aggressive and territorial. From here on these fish will “have a go” at virtually anything that gets close. During the spawning runs I think it can be an advantage to use rubber-leg patterns or flies with contrasting colors and other triggers like plenty of flash. Some trips a particular fly will stand out from the rest and this week it’s the turn of a little beauty which I believe is a Manic Tackle creation tied using a material called Swishers Rub A Dub.
The lengths of fine rubber in this dubbing give any imitation life and movement which fish find attractive. These and caddis in white or olive are the only flies I’ve needed to use. Strangely for the last couple of days my globugs have mostly been ignored. The town pools were popular over the holiday and the Hydro, Major Jones and Bridge are still receiving attention from the remaining anglers. Looks like some really big rain is heading our way with 60mm – 80mm forecast for the Central Plateau on Friday and into Saturday so keep an eye on the flow graph. Yesterday I had an email from Tore Aalberg who is a Norwegian client I had the pleasure of guiding a few months ago. Like most anglers from that part of the world they really know their stuff and Tore was no different. The highlight of our time on the Tongariro was his personal best Brown that you can see him holding in the home page slide-show presentation.
The salmon season opened in Norway on June 1st and just look at what he’s holding onto now !!!
Be lucky out there
Mike |
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