Did my second charter for the Northpower fishing competition over the weekend back up North near the Bay Of Islands where I am originally from. Started out at th Rimuriki Islands for an evening fish in Mike Burgins close spot after an unsuccessful try on Tom McCauleys reef off sugar loaf. Burleyed hard and soon had a few smaller snapper coming aboard as well as hundreds of Jack Mackeral, Trevally, and Blue Maomao in the burley. Didn’t land anything fantastic but definitely had the takes we were after. Moana had 2 good runs that were large snapper but they failed to hook up, and Charlie had 1 which had so much weight we though it would bust off but in the end the hook pulled, very unlucky as Charlie was starting to make some headway with the beast. Pretty sure they were snapper as the had the nod and just headed away in a straight line. Keith had a stingray earlier which we thought could have been a good snapper but should have know better as it circled the boat.

Ross had speared a godd kingi of around 30 pounds earlier in the day of the close point from Wangamumu, we also had had several small snapper and a lot of reasonable kingis – not rats, following the fish up off the reef just short of Taupiri.

On Saturday morning we headed North looking to get out of the easterly but found little fish on the reefs and ended up at Cape Brett where I got my first good lesson on the success of speed jigging. A boat with people on was working the area we decided to anchor in just in front of the Northern side of the hole in the rock, they had already had a few nice kingis with a 30 pounder tied onto the back. They dropped there jigs down medium size white blue and pink and cranked like hell. The hooked at least half a dozen good ones right next to us that we saw so we decided to give it a go. While the girls and Charlie continued to snapper fish Vern put one of Yohans warehouse jigs on – white and pink – and cranked it to the top on a bait runner with 20 pound line. After 5 minutes he had had enough so I took over. After about 5 minutes whilst cranking to the surface the line went tight and I felt a nod. Thinking it might have been either a kingi or the anchor rope I called to the others just as the brute decided to head for the bottom, the rod gave and almighty heave down with the tip dropping several feet into the water in a split second and the line broke – stupidly had the drag up too tight. The line came back frayed as the beast had done me on the foul bottom.

A short while after this Mary hooked a good snapper which after a long fight to the surface came over the side and weiged just under 7kg gilled and gutted so probably around 17 or 18 pounds. This fish won her first in the ladys section at the Northpower comp and I think it was 3rd overall.

Have got my jigs ready for next time.

Have just heard that the New Zealand Fly Fishing Team have beaten Australia in Australia at the oceania champs with my good mate Nick Dobyn coming first overall! You can see Nick in some of the photos on my site as we often give each other a hand guiding.

Picked up two clients on the 21st from River Birches a 5 star fishing lodge in Turangi and took them to river 1. Had a good walk at the beginning and the end to get to this spot but thought it was necassary given the pressure the rest of the water has been recieving lately. Had a reasonable day – not red hot but still managed between the two of them to hook 13 and land 8 including 1 sighted on a dry. Mostly smaller fish but 3 or 4 around the 4 pound mark. Was relatively slow going to begin with and we had to work hard. Not like a couple of weeks earlier where they were jumping on the hook in this spot with Eric Seppi. They seem to take the Burgin Sawyers more than 16 BB H&C which worked well with Eric.

I very nice day out with great weather on river 4 yesterday. It was Bruce & Lindsay’s first day ever fly fly fishing and they did well. After a frustrating start for Bruce with his first one busting him off and a nervous early strike on a dry – got a bit of a fright when a browny turned and materalized and tried to take the dry. The day got better when after loosing another nice 3 and half pound rainbow on the dry Bruce at last managed to land his first ever trout on fly which was about a 3 – 3 and a half pound brown on the nymph below the dry. As the sun got higher the wind unfortunately came up making it pretty tough for a fulla to cast out dry’s on his first day fishing but Bruce still managed to have the elite pleasure of flipping a dry to a nice brown we had been casting to for a few minutes and as his guide was just saying that the cast wasn’t long enough the hungry fella turned to the left made a bee line for the little adams, inhaled it and turned – Bruce waited for a couple of seconds perfectly timing his strike and the fight was on ending in the net across the other side of the river and downstream a bit. In the end 6 were hooked and played of which 3 broke the fly off and 3 were landed. There were also two other missed takes on dry and 2 brief hook and wriggles on nymph making around 10 touches for the day. I look forward to hopefully seeing Bruce and Lindsay in the future.

Not my favorite way of fishing for trout but it does have its moments – not today though. I prefer the more active form of catching trout i.e. fly fishing but a lot of people do find it relaxing out in the boat on lake Taupo jigging for trout so it is important for me to spend time out there doing it as I have my ticket and my boat is in survey. Normally the trout play ball but today was one of those days where they didn’t. We only tried for a couple of hours in the afternoon though and spent more time motoring around trying spots than sitting there dangling our lines in. We were hoping to get 5 year old Shinaia her first ever trout but it wasn’t to be on this occasion. Next time!

Just finished 3 days guiding with Eric Seppi from New York. Great 3 days, apart from the fishing we shared a similar sence of humour, music, and ideas so had a great time on the river – well I did anyway. Stayed out at “Spot X” from my New Zealand Fishing Lodges page and had a ball watching the brown trout rise in the evenings after fishing not too far away for the day.

Day 1 resulted in around 20 hookups with a couple of others missed on dry fly in river 1. The trout were a good mix of rainbows and browns with a couple of smaller ones around a pound and a half ranging up to 6 and a half pounds. The biggest one noticebly bigger than the weighed 6 and half pounder slammed a cicada and tore around the pool for 5 minutes nearly coming to the net before freeing itself. The average size was around 3 pounds.

Day 2 saw us in my super scenic gin clear spot chasing bigger ones. No real big ones were landed but only 4 from 8 were landed, the biggest for the day landed was a jack just under 6 pounds and in perfect condition. Would suspect that at least one of the escapes would be bigger as the fish in here same to have a medium size of around 7 pounds normally.

Day 3 saw us on a river 4 a much smaller river with very easing wading and easy fishing as the river runs mainly through farmland. Had some great sight fishing both dry fly and nymph as well as a little blind fishing and had around 20 takes and hookups allthough the landing ration was somewhat less. Mostly browns but with a few nice rainbows. Most of the fish were in the 1.5 to 3 pound range but we missed the first three that were 4 pounds plus. Although the fish in this river are generally a little smaller there are still quite a few good ones, and it is a fantastically peaceful place to fish and provides good opportunities for sight fishing at this time of the year. The river does have a little colour but is pretty shallow so sight fishing is pretty good at this time of the year.

Another great day on river with Eddie and Barbara Leyland from Derbyshire in England. 14 hooked 1 which was sighted and the rest blind. PT’s were the main fly but my own tie hot orange ribbed gold bead nymph also took quite a few. Mainly rainbows in the 2 – 3 pound range with a couple of larger ones and a couple of smaller ones sprinkled in and a couple of browns as well. Not all were landed, but the scenery and weather helped produce a fantastic day on the river overall. A few fish were rising in the afternoon and one very stubborn 4 pound rainbow was sipping from the surface in front of us for quite a while refusing, several patterns, and won in the end with the towel being thrown in as the wind rose, making an already difficult cast impossible.

A beatiful day out on beat 2 river 4 today resulted in some splendid fishing for this family with around a dozen or more hookups and a few other missed takes on dries with fish ranging from 1 pound to 4 and a half pounds in general. 2 browns were in the 4 to 4 and a half pound range and a few nice rainbows around 2 to 3 pounds landed as well as one 4 pounder lost. A few smaller fish and a couple of dinks as well were also landed. The fishing was good with 1 landed on dry fly and 4 other hits on dry, 2 to sighted fish, 1 to the indicator, and 1 blind hitting the cicada but getting tangled in the line for a couple of minutes before getting off. All in all a great day with a good variety of both rainbows and browns of all sizes, caught by both blind nymphing, dry fly, and dry-fly nymph combo. Not as many cicadas in this area as in some others at the moment, but plenty of good browns in the riffles and rainbows in the gorgey pools.

Guided Martin Bland on river 1 today, had a fantastic day with Martin hooking 6 good Rainbows between 4 and 5 pounds for his first ever day fly fishing! Had a bit of a run of bad luck for a while losing the 1st 5 fish particularly when the 5th one only got off due to a second trout grabbing the point fly. Finally towards the end of the day, following an epic battle that end 200m downstream Martin finally landed his first ever trout.

Hello to anyone that reads this. A while ago an American client gave me a couple of suggestions that he thought would benefit my site and its readers/users and inherently my potential customers. It was not by any means a lack of fish or fish size that prompted this, just that they would have liked to have seen this on sites before they chose to come over and it would have made their decision making process easier. He suggested that keeping an online diary of fishing events particularly catch numbers and sizes would give people a useful idea of what to expect. As we all know – fishing is fishing, and results are never predetermined before the start of a day but at least people should be able to get a good indication of what the Central North Island of New Zealand particulary the Lake Taupo region has to offer in terms of fly fishing. Not having fished the entire rest of the world I can’t say beyond any shadow of doubt that we have the best trout fly fishing here, particulary with places around like Patagonia and the South Island of New Zealand, but having fished here a fair reasonable amount now and having talked with people who have fished everywhere else on the planet – I have a strong suspicion that we do have the best Trout Fly Fishing in the world here.

Myself when fishing have had days ranging from 0 hookups of course to 60 – 70 trout in the 3 to 6 pound range (it was an exceptional day). My client hookup rates over the past season have been from 0 to 41 which was 3 capable fishermen and 2 of us guiding the group 3. Blanks or skunkings as we call them seem to occur about 1 day in 20 – fairly rare I should think and have occurred with clients twice in the past year due to bad weather, and once due to bad luck i.e. 15 sighted, 10 cast to, 4 takes 2 hookup and bust-offs.

Obviously their are numerous factors other than fish numbers and size which determine a good days fly fishing. Myself I am just happy to be out there on a windless sunny day with clear water and nobody else in sight. To me that is better than catching fish, but to most trout are a necassary component of course! In my guiding I try to offer people not only trout, but an opportunity to enjoy New Zealands fantastic scenery and I try to avoid crowds whenever possible – which means that about half the time you will not see another fisherman all day during the summer, in the winter you will likely see several.

I exclusively practise catch and release in the back-coutry and have only knowingly contributed to the demise of 3 back-coutry trout in my entire life, none of which I am proud of although the first one was my first on a live cricket with sea fishing gear at the back of my grandparents farm when I was just a wee lad so I guess it was sort of understandable.

Anyway this diary begins today and I will attempt to update it everyday I have been out fishing or guiding which is pretty much every day. This intended to be a real and accurate account and I encourage clients and friends that I fish with to correct it or debate size estimations if you want – but to all my friends please watch your language or I will have to edit it out.

Obviously I will not name back-coutry rivers but will number them 1 onwards but will use the name of the Taupo tributaries and lakes of course as there are no secrets here.

Tight Lines

Andrew Blake

Anglers Anonymous Ltd

www.newzealandfishing.com