A little late getting started again this morning, but we still managed to hit the river – this time the Tongariro – shortly after 8am. Reports from all other fishermen were that the Tongariro was still fishing a bit slow with a lot of people spending the whole day out without even a touch – even spoke to a few people who had been fishing a whole week without anything. Needless to say we wern’t expecting a lot, however the fishing wasn’t actually as hard as everyone was saying. We fished handy to where we parked and basically just fished one little lye that we could see some some trout in and Phil managed to get bust off by a good trout pretty early. By around midday Phil had managed to land 1 of 5 hooked which wasn’t a bad effort. I would guess that Phil would have hooked a similar amount the afternoon if he had continued fishing but our plan was to head to a trophy lake near Rotorua for a try before Phil headed back to Auckland for his flight out tomorrow. The trophy lake unfortunately didn’t produce – it was freezing cold and a little windy so I guess the trout just wern’t feeding agressively or wern’t in our part of the lake. In all the Tongariro certainly wasn’t fishing as fast and furious as it will in the coming months but it was still pretty good by all accounts. There also seems to be a general consensous that fish size and condition is gettting better and hopefully but the end of this season or at least next season at the latest things should be back to normal for Taupo.

Guided Phillip Norman from Brisbane in the back country again today. We briefly fished the Tongariro in the morning but struggled in the windy conditions so moved out of the Taupo area for the afternoon. Phil had a great afternoon landing 4 out of 11 trout hooked in the 3 to 5 pound range which inluded one Brown trout and the rest presumably Rainbows.

Conditions in Turangi were a little rough weather wise this morning so rather than battling to cast heavy flies in strong winds I took Phil out to a back-country spot that he has fished with me before in the past.

The fishing wasn’t fast and furious but was still OK with Phil landing 7 out of 11 Rainbow Trout hooked in the 3 to 5 pound range.

Flies of the day were Hare & Copper and Flasback Pheasant tail.

Guided regular client Phil Norman from Australia today and attempted to find Phil his first trophy. Conditions were good for most of the day so we took advantage and fished a local Trophy lake. We didn’t crack the magic 10 pound mark but Phil stil managed to hook 5 nice trout of which the biggest landed was 5 and a half pounds. Two got away and one was a very solid fish – so who knows!

Went for a brief fish with past clients and friends Glen And Theresa Good on Saturday morning. By the time I dragged myself out of bed and caught up with them on the river they had already landed 4 Rainbows. Glen added another to that talley and myself a further 1 before the wind got up and we moved to find a less windy position. We found a less windy position but the fishing wasn’t all that hot which was expected given the conditions and time of year. Later in the afternoon I had a brief flick out in a back-country spot and landed 2 nice browns in the 3 – 4 pound range and lost a good Rainbow around 4 pounds also.

Have basically been focused getting the new boat ready rather than fishing the past couple of weeks but am pleased to say that hopefully the boat will be on the water and ready for chartering within the next couple of weeks – so I can get back to fishing and earning some money rather than spending it! The goal is to have this boat offering sportfishing options out of the Bay Of Islands (including salt-fly) during the summer and to have another smaller center console boat ready also for October 1 to give an extra option based out of Turangi/Taupo when conditions don’t suit fishing rivers or lakes from the shore. The boat in progress at the moment has been modified to be virtually snag-free and completely walk-around to suit fly fishing but is also incredibly sea-worthy and is offshore rated to get to get fishermen safely and comfortably out to the good fishing. We hope to be offering fly fishing tours in the near future that involve pick-up and drop off from Auckland airport and then an on tour fishing trip fishing and sight seeing around the Central North Island for trout and then sea fishing as well in the Bay Of Islands as well as a couple of other North Island locations. We are also considering at some stage adding hunting if required into these packages.