Guided the Tongariro this morning which was fishable again at 50 after 160 the previous day. My mate Blair Alabaster assisted in the mornings guiding and Mark, Brian, and Peter ended with several nice rainbow trout each (around 3 and a half pounds average) landed out of 23 hooked – roughly – in 4 hours, conditions were pretty much perfect.

A call just before lunch yesterday had me meeting Stewart and Sally in Turangi town center for their first ever fly fishing excursion. We hit the Tongariro just before lunch and initially started with wet lining. The start was a little slow while they got used to casting and the river was also reasonably high – over 60 cumecs. After no luck on the wet lines in the first spot we crossed the river as the flow dropped to around 50 cumecs and continued fishing with one wet-lining and 1 nymphing. We ended with 3 hookups of which one nice rainbow was landed which had taken my new hydrosyche bomb, don’t know which fly the other two took but most likely the glow-bug given that they got off and the glowbug hook was smaller than the bomb hook therefore more likely for the trout to get off.

Guided the Kerrs from Whangarei today on the Tongariro for their first ever days fly fishing. The day started a little slow as the team got the hang of casting but by the end of the day each of the Kerr’s had managed to hook and play at least 1 trout each. In the end I think we hooked around 12 or 13 of which 3 were landed. Most were nymphing globugs but there were also a few wetlining olive wolley bugggers. We were very lucky to get a break in the weather where the level and color of the Tongariro had become fishable for the first time in days. The Tauranga-Taupo river is still flooded and predictions are for more rain tonight.

Fished the Tongariro today briefly with my mate Blair Alibastair. The river was up high and dirty and we each long distance tagged a trout – basically the water was too dirty.