Mark who has only ever done a little fly fishing before learnt in the first pool this morning how quick and powerful New Zealand’s Rainbow Trout are with an early bust off. Shortly after managed this his first New Zealand trout and also probably his biggest – which he did beat later on. It was a slow start for his father Roman who happily took up second position in the pools while his son learned to fish. By lunch time the total tally was Mark’s 3 hooked and 2 landed. After lunch the day got better and better with Mark hooking a further 3 and Roman landing a further 4 out of 5 legitamately hooked plus 1 other foul hooked to make 11 good legitimate hook and plays averaging 3 pounds R4BB8C.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Falling

Cloud/Wind: A little wind today but fishable

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: Marcel at the new Riverway General Store and Outfitters accross the road has been recommending Green Stoneflies – a lot of his customers have been getting success on his custom tied Green Stonefly patterns.

Have been out nearly every day for an hour or on the Tongariro pracising spey casting and not seeing very many fish caught. There are a few around of course and I should imagine that numbers will be increasing at the delta. There should be a reasonable run up all rivers with the next rain. Its time!

This is my first entry for a few days as I have been sitting at home in front of the computer upgrading the web site to link this blog to a photo gallery progam so that clients can click on the photo like this one here and be taken to a photo album where they can download the full high resolution photos of their trips. It has taken a few very long days but the system is finally pretty much complete and looking good. If any one reading this has any problems viewing anything then please send me an email with the problem and your browser version i.e. Internet Explorer 5 or Firefox etc.

On another note, I have just sold my hunting rifle – a Ruger Model 77 243 stainless sythetic for a near new SAKO 75 Grey Wolf of the same caliber. Now all I have to do is find a new scope – probably a Leupold VXIII with 50mm objective lenz. Also considering a silencer for it. My new rifle should arrive today! Had to have a couple of things done to the rifle like lightening the trigger which was going to cost money so thought it was time for a new rifle.

kkk 

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Falling

Cloud/Wind: A little wind today but fishable

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: Marcel at the new Riverway General Store and Outfitters accross the road has been recommending Green Stoneflies – a lot of his customers have been getting success on his custom tied Green Stonefly patterns.

Went for a brief flick in the Hydro pool of the Tongariro this afternoon and had no luck – though I only fished from one position for half an hour. Normally I do pick up a few fish there. Talking to a few others and the fishing has been very tough on the Taupo tributaries. The unusually dry weather hasn’t helped.

On a controversial note I am wondering if people should be killing every trout out of the Taupo system they can get their hands on. I am not suggesting doing this – just pondering the merits based on the smaller than usual size and the possibility of this being caused by good high numbers of trout because of good breeding conditions over past couple of years. The smelt population in the lake is known to be down and this can’t be helped by high trout numbers. The high trout numbers certainly aren’t in the Taupo tributaries yet but give it a few weeks and they will be. I am looking forward to it. Please feel free to leave comments in response to this controversial pondering.

Spent the last few days adding a new photo gallery system to the site which will allow the display and download of all my client photos. I have been working though the photos and uploading them as has Charlie from Spot X Lodge. It will take a couple more weeks to get them up but will mean if I have taken photos of your trip you should be able to search for your name – or part of your name in the gallery and find your photos. You can then download them, get them cleaned up by a professional if you like and print them out in high enough quality to print a poster sized photo for your living room wall or office. I have a friend up North who puts photos on canvas prints for a living and the look fantastic! My new camera is 10 Mega pixel so pretty good resolution and photoshop can fix what my poor photography skills achieve.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Falling

Cloud/Wind: A little wind today but fishable

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: Marcel at the new Riverway General Store and Outfitters accross the road has been recommending Green Stoneflies – a lot of his customers have been getting success on his custom tied Green Stonefly patterns.

Had a fantastic last day with Phil Norman and Darren Bell today thankfully as I was a little worried after the flooded rivers yesterday. The river was still up and dirty but the trout were on the feed. Phil started of by site fishing a nice brown before getting bust off big time by a good rainbow which we also new the location of before casting as it had come up to take nymphs a couple of times. Phil then get bust off by the trout version of an unstoppable train. The day finished with 21 hookups of which a majority were landed. Darren had a fantastic day landing 5 out of 7 and Phil took care of the rest which included a beatifully condition Rainbow hen pictured here

Tongariro Report

Barometer:

Cloud/Wind:

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies:

After a heavy downpour of rain in the middle of the night we woke to the back country rivers in our area being flooded. Moving to plan B we went over to fish the Tongariro and other Taupo tributaries where Darren managed to land a Rainbow Trout of around 2.5 pounds and Phil lost one nice trout. Around lunch time the Tongariro suddenly got dirtier and was flowing very brown so we shifted our attention back to the back country where the high waters were receding. Darren managed to add a brown of around 2.5 pounds to make the final talley for the day 2 landed from 3 hooked. Very slow – but difficult conditions.

Tongariro Report

Barometer:

Cloud/Wind:

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies:

Coming on winter the back country fishing is certainly a little slower than normal but the day went pretty well. Phil landed his best ever rainbow early in the morning of 7.5lbs and Darren managed a beauty brown of 6lbs after a fantastic fight that took him down river 100 metres. In the end the guys landed 5 out of 13 hooked. A lot of the trout were in the 2kg plus range.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Falling

Cloud/Wind: A little wind and overcast with drizzly rain all day getting heavier toward evening

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: Burgin Sawyers Pheasant tail

Phillip Norman and friend Darren arrived back today and proceeded to empty New Zealand of fish starting with our sacred north island waters hooking 16 fish and losing how many we do not know. We have suggested fishing other countries but alas they refused, saying that they will be back tomorrow and whenever they darn well please so now we will attempt to wear them down by shear fish numbers alone

Tongariro Report

Barometer:

Cloud/Wind:

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies:

This is the first post for a week as I have been changing web hosting for my site and would have lost any updates. Briefly the last week has consistied of fly fishing, duck shooting, and deer stalking today. My mate Ross Wilson who works for Northpower and myself were dragged out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5:30 this morning by our my other mate Johan the South African who doesn’t drink hence wasn’t suffering like Ross and I who would have preferred a couple more hours recovery after last night. We drove a short distance from home, hiked up a mountain and as we came over a ridge heard some rustling in the scrub 30 – 40 meters away. We thought it was a pig until some antlers emerged and we briefly saw the stag. Ross took the shot as Johan couldn’t get a clear site on it (I was just the guide) and we thought he had hit it. The scrub was pretty thick and it took a while before we found it. I prooved my manliness by carrying back down.

Tongariro Report

Barometer:

Cloud/Wind:

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: