Guided my mate Ross Wilson from Northpower on the Tongariro today, it was his second time fly fishing and his first time nymphing. Ross managed to hook 7 rainbow trout in the morning landing 3, and then landed another nice one up river in the afternoon. I managed a couple while coaching him. Ross picked it up fairly quickly an looks set to be hooked on fly fishing.

Went for my usual day off afternoon casting practice at the hydro pool – with flies on of course – and managed to hook 5 reasonable trout in the 3 – 4 pound range. Others around were catching the odd fish here and there also, both wet-lining and nymphing. I was using the usual hare and copper tungsten bomb with a glow-bug truck and trailered behind, another local was doing equally as well on small naturals. There is undoubtably good quantities of fish all the the Tongariro now, and if you are fishing here at the moment then you should do fairly well.

Guided Jason, a fellow guide from Oregon and his wife Lorissa on the Tongariro today and had a ball. By lunch time they had hooked into somewhere between 30 and 40 rainbows of excellent condition. We started early and claimed a good lye that I felt may hold fish after the barometer dropped yesterday and it worked – I love it when a plan comes together. It was only a morning job so I spent the afternoon prospecting around the same area trying to figure out the other lyes (the river changes a bit after every flood) upstream of where we had caught the fish. I fished one spot quite quickly for only one fish and then later witnessed another gentleman slaying them out of there which shows how easy it is to overlook some of the lyes unless you know them exactly and have faith in them to persevere.

Went for a brief flick on the Tongariro today – more to practice casting than to seriously fish but still managed to hook 3 in the Hydro pool though it appeared to be a little slow from what other anglers were saying.

Guided Charlie from England today and went to a different river to last time a guided him. Had a fantastic day with Charlie landing 15 out of 21 hooked not including the 3 foul hooked fish. The average size was a bit over three pounds. The conditions were a little trying to begin with but eventually the wind settled down and left us in peace.

Took Greg and Scot from Colorado back out on the Tongariro today with fellow guide Marcel for a bit of a look around. Marcel managed to hook two or three and Scott 1, I managed a couple from the Hydro early on but didn’t fish a lot. Over all it would have to be described as slow – though I was really just prospecting. The probable reason would be the hundreds of fishermen around over the past week with school holidays and the recent fine weather.

Picked Nigel up early for his first real attempt at fly fishing a river and before too long he had managed to hook a couple which got off. Nigel then landed an OK rainbow before being bust off by a fairly good one to end a great mornings fishing in the Tongariro river.

.53 – .51. Guided Scot and Greg today on there first nymphing experience today which was also their first fly fishing in New Zealand. Both the guys had done a bit of dry fly fishing back home and they soon got the hang of casting our heavy weighted nymphs and managed to land around 20 out of 30 rainbow trout hooked today up the Tauranga-Taupo river. Basically a Stella day though we could have done without the cold strong winds later on. The fish were mainly out of two lies – my favourite and one other, though we also picked up and saw plenty of other fish getting caught by others everywhere.

Went for a scout up the TT today, cruised around looking for new lyes and found 1 new lye which produced a few. Ended with 6 landed and 8 hooked and spent most my time just walking and looking. Got a cracker jack around 6 pounds and another around 5 pounds. Found a heap in a back-eddy that I dropped a glow-bug on from the bank and hooked 2 landing 1. .6 – .55.

Guided Peter Hill from Whangarei and his sons Mark and Brian again today and to add a bit of variation we went up the TT early this morning. After a slow and freezing cold start the guys started to get a few nice trout and ended the day with around 20 or more hookups. It was great to see how much both Mark and Brians casting and mending improved over the course of the day and I enjoyed just sitting back and watching them fish away by the end of the day. Pretty much all of the fish were in excellent condition, and the fish seemed to be all though the river. .67 – .63 and a couple of the normal more riffly spots didn’t fish well probably due to high flow. Some of the other normal spots did fish really well. The Tongariro fished well again today on naturals evidently. We had all ours on SEGB’s. The weather played ball and it was yet another fantastic day out!