Picked up Peter Greenway from England for a days guided back country fly fishing in New Zealand’s Central North Island today. We started the day strong missing a strike on one fish and then hooking and losing Peters biggest ever brown trout. We then cast and spooked a few before bringing in a good brown foul hooked and then landing a cracker 5.5 pounder. The day then slowed down and we had a relatively hard afternoon finishing with 2 landed + 1 foul hooked landed out of 7 hooked in the mouth. The fish size and conditions was good.

Tongariro Report

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16 hooked and 11 landed mainly around 3 pounds but with 1 at 5 pounds to day for Peter and John. We continued our friendly Aussie – Kiwi banter – thankfully the guys had a great sence of humour. Peter took an involuntery swim around lunch – much to our amusement. John was more worried about me unhooking his line from a rock so he could cast again than rescuing Peter and told me he would be fine – so we left him to it!

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A beautiful day greeted us out back country this morning though a little colder than what these two Aussie doctors are used to. In all the guys hooked 7 trout today and landed 4, of which one was over 8 lbs, 1 at 6.75 and 1 at 5.75 lbs. Peter’s (pictured above), was the biggest which is a very big wilderness rainbow, it actually looked very close to the magic trophy 10lb mark and fought much like a trophy taking Peter up and down the pool several times with immense unstoppable power for a trout. After a few quick photos the fish, which will definitely be a trophy next year was released back into the same pool and its position noted in memory for next season.

Tongariro Report

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Met John and Pete this morning from Australia at Spot X Lodge for the first of 3 days guided fly fishing in New Zealand’s central North Island with me. We travelled just a short distance from the lodge and were fishing within half an hour of the guys finishing a good breakfast of Bacon and eggs cooked by Nadine at Spot X Lodge. After an hour or so of tuition the guys were into it and managed to land around half of the 16 or 17 nice sized rainbow and brown trout hooked for the day.

Tongariro Report

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Went out scoping some new winter water today with Charlie and Earl from Spot X. Earl is a local helicoptor pilot and has done a lot of bird shooting but not a huge amount of fly fishing so today was also a bit of a tutoring session for him. Charlie landed a couple of good ones and missed a couple (didn’t realize I had reversed one of his flies around for a laugh) and Earl go one good one and a couple of small ones. In all the spot wasn’t actually to bad and I would expect it to probably be quite good in summer with quite a bit of riffly water around some decent sized boulders. I got four geese with four shots which is pretty good for me – my shotgunning needs some work.

Tongariro Report

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Went out briefly this morning to a test out a new fly reel I have been given and was quite impressed. The reel by Busse und Pelican from Germany seems to be well designed and constructed and having had a few friends with reel maintainance back-grounds have a look at the inside works they all seem impressed and comment that it seems to be quite high quality. The reels drag coped well with this nice river 3 rainbow trout of around 4 pounds which will normally test most equipment to breaking point. If anyone reading this is interested the reel will be hitting the market at around US$200 which seems pretty good for a reel of this quality. Time will tell how well the reel lasts as I have a bad habit of breaking things and wearing them out unfortunately. If the reel lasts through next summer with me then it will last most people their lifetime.

Tongariro Report

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Had a great day today with Peter and Sharon today from Australia – unfortunately the best photos are on their camera including the one of Sharnons 6 and 1/4 pound brown trout which kicked the day off nicely. Shortly after Peter landed a nice brown and the team then proceeded to land a further 4 out of 10 good sized fish hooked including several in the 4 – 5 pound bracket. Sharon also managed to see a deer as we walked down the secret track to the secret fishing spot in the secret river.

Both Sharon and Peter fished very well and seemed to have “gotten the drift” of fishing our bubbly, pocket waters.

Tongariro Report

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Guided Peter and Sharon today on their first of two days fly fishing guiding with me while staying at spot X, Was a little worried last night with all the rain and a few rivers were out but we mangaed to find some water clear enough to nymph.

The fishing was a little slower than nomal but Peter and Sharon still managed to hook 10 reasonable fish between them and landed the two smallest ones of around a pound and a half. There were several in the 3 to 4 pound range the escaped. A few smaller ones were landed and got off also. It was noticable that a fair few of the fish foul hooked – an unusually high percentage. Could have been to do with the discoloured water or maybe just not into those flies.

In all a pretty acceptable day given the conditions. Things are looking a bit better for tomorrow provided the Mt Ruapehu doesn’t errupt – there is quite a bit of activity there at the moment and a level 3 warning in place.

Tongariro Report

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Guided Wei Li from Auckland and his father-in-law from USA on Friday and due to duck shooting all weekend this is the first chance I have had to update my blog. The guys were due to fish with me last Wednesday but because of bad weather on Tuesday, I advised them not to come. The guys were keen and able to come later in the week and the weather played ball so here is the report.

The guys took advantage of my catch insurance scheme due to the higher water levels and lack of fly fishing experience which means an extra 10% premium but guarantees hooked and played legal size trout or your money back. Fortunately for me and for them, they each hooked and played several trout with Wei-Li landing this superb 5.25lb rainbow trout as well as a 4.5lb brown trout. Al managed a nice brown of 4lb and was bust-off by a bigger unstoppable rainbow. Wei-Li was bust-off once after a long fight and then dropped another out of the same pool before landing his first brown. Wei-Li briefly hooked two more before landing the good rainbow.

The end score was 3 landed over 4 pounds out of 7 hooked + 2 further definite brief hookups and a couple of other likely strikes.

My duck shooting was a little less successful but was great fun all the same. I stayed out at Spot X Lodge and shot with Charlie, their 10 year old son Jack and Nelly. We had a great time and had plenty of opportunities. We managed 3 ducks, a heap of turkeys and Jack also managed a few geese. Personally I managed to acclimatize the ducks to the harmless sound of loud bangs!

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Low

Cloud/Wind: Very light southerly wind, overcast and drizzly rain at the moment after raining steadily all night

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River Conditions: Dirty and coloured

Recommended Flies: Black gold bead wooley buggers