All the rivers around Taupo are full of trout at the moment and providing great sport. Went fishing with my mate and fellow guide Mike Burgin this afternoon and hooked around 30 between us in the Tauranga-Taupo river. There were trout visible everywhere you looked.

Later in the evening I had a beer with a friend Andy from TALTAC down at the Bridge Pool and witnessed a fantastic evening rise with good sized trout eveywhere smashing emerging caddis. there was quite a few people down there fishing the evening rise which is great to see. It makes a change to see people using the Tongariro for dry fly.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Rising

Cloud/Wind: Overcast with no wind

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: Cased caddis, pheasant tails, elkhair caddis in evening, small glowbugs where fish won’t take pheasant tail, hare & coppers

.52 - .51. Took the Murphy family from New Zealand out today for their first annual adventure. This was the first ever try at fly fishing for trout and a great day was had. In total 11 nice rainbow trout were landed out of 17 hooked. This is Ben with the nicest of the day at around 3 and a half pounds. A lot of the fish were recoveries but still great fun.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Rising

Cloud/Wind: Sunny mostly but very windy

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Slightly green but clearing TT

Recommended Flies: Champagne and flame glow-bug

Went out this morning for a bit of a fish and had a stellar morning playing around 15 or 16 trout ranging from 1 pounds to this one here of around 8 or 9 pounds which after its first sizzling run I thought was going to pass the magic 10 pound mark. Called my guiding mate Mike Burgin up and he wasted no time in getting there and hooked into several in no time at all. Am sheltering from the hail storm inside my house now and am going to tie flies for the busy summer ahead.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Dropping

Cloud/Wind: Good this morining but just clouded over and started hailing with thunder and lighening so guessing we might be in for some more rough weather.

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Low and clear

Recommended Flies: Pheasant tail and flashblack black hare & copper rubber legs.

Went to a local lake today for around an hour with mate and fellow guide Mike Burgin. I landed 2 out of 3 and Mike landed 2 or 3 out of about 5. Not bad considering the winds nearly knocked us off our feet a couple of times! Wind and cold eventually got the better of us.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Rising

Cloud/Wind: Windy and cloudy

Water Temperature:

River Conditions:

Recommended Flies: Enhanced Chris

Peter Neil an Australian client from earlier in the year enjoyed his fly fishing here so much last time that he booked the whole family into the luxurious River Birches Lodge again, this time for a couple more days guiding fly fishing in our back-country rivers. Unfortunately due to weather conditions and the back-country rivers being flooded he has had to fish around Taupo. Peter went with guide Ken Drummond yesterday as I was still guiding Lyndon and Judy Forrest and he had a ball out on the boat with Ken. From what Peter says, he hooked around 20 odd fish up to around 4 or 5 pounds and was stoked and surprised at Kens disappointment at the fish size! I was a little disappointed myself with the fish size this morning, fishing the same area as Ken did with Peter, the biggest was this fish of around 6 and a half pounds in an area where this is often the normal size. After landing 12 for the morning and losing as many we headed up the Tauranga-Taupo river in the afternoon where Peter landed a further 12 out of 23 hooked making 24 landed out of over 40 hookups for the day. Probably missed half as many takes again, so in the end an excellent day. Hopefully the weather will be better for Peters next trip.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Falling

Cloud/Wind: Raining heavy outside now at 10pm - expecting rivers to be unfishable tomorrow

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Green and clearing today but probably rising now

Recommended Flies: Champagne and flame glow bug

Yet another great day out for the Forrests today, who learnt that fishing in a flood with rain and strong winds can actually produce a few trout. Lyndon and Judy both did excellently, landing 8 out of 9 trout ranging from 2 pounds to 5 pounds and included a mixed bag of rainbows and browns.

Tongariro Report

Barometer: Low

Cloud/Wind: Cloud, Rain, Wind, flooded rivers - Taupo tributaries receding

Water Temperature:

River Conditions: Dirty brown and high though Tongariro becoming fishable

Recommended Flies: Black stone fly

Picked up Andrew this morning and headed up the Tongariro for a mornings guiding, the usual spots were a little slow but OK probably because the water was still fairly coloured, am guessing the river will probably fish better this aftenoon and tomorrow. We hooked 4 in the Tongariro and one in the Tauranga-Taupo which was realistically still a bit too coloured to be fishing. All in all a pretty fair morning and Andrew was good company on the river and was a pretty good caster for someone who only fishes a couple of times a year.

There is no doubt that the fish are smaller this year - I would guess about a pound smaller on average i.e. I would guess the average to be just below 3 pounds. The only possible logical reason for this is lack of food in lake Taupo which would suggest that for some reason the smelt arn’t there in great size or abundance. DOC are trying to say that it is due to the fish spawning later and later but this does not make sence as the fish that were getting caught this time last year and in all previous years were a lot bigger. The fish have been around the same size for the last few months and I would predict the size to be quite small right up to September - the supposed new peak spawning time. How can you say the fish are getting smaller because they are spawning later and don’t have as much time to grow - 2 years is 2 years whether it is September to September or June to June! Either natural weather conditions will have caused the smelt situation or human factors like the posibility of fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides such as 1080 finally reaching levels that could be effecting algae growth in the lake or whatever smelt feed on. Noticably a lot of the fish arn’t exactly fat either!

Fished today with some friends from TALTAC all over the place and between us probably hooked around 15 or 20 for the day. Lots of other anglers around. Conditions are pretty good both in the Tauranga-Taupo and the Tongariro. I was disappointed to see other fishermen again fishing a lye that I thought no-one knew about - Oh well I guess I will just have to go fishing some more and look for some new lyes - its a hard life!

.63 fishing short walk, 2 new possible high water lyes, 12 rainbows hooked in 2 hours averaging 3 pounds, may have been run passing thru though some were recoveries - will test again tomorrow - some usual lyes didn’t have many.

Its 6:10am is I write this while I wait for my mate Peter Grange from TALTAC (Tongariro and Lake Taupo Anglers Club) to turn-up to go fishing and its raining outside. At the moment the flows are up a little in the Tongariro and the Tauranga-Taupo which is meant to be our destination for the day. I think we will sit around for an hour or so and have a cuppa while we wait and see what the weather does. Peter is in his early 70’s and as you can no doubt tell by this early start, he still has never lost his passion for fly fishing which was his reason for immigrating to New Zealand back in his 20’s - I had a hard time convincing him that 6:30 was a better time than 6 to head away - need my extra half hours beauty sleep!