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What a difference a day makes.
Sat 27th February, 2016
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In the words of the old classic made famous by Dinah Washington "What a difference a day makes". I got on the river as it settled back after the last fresh and for a few days at least the Tongariro was back to its very best. I ended the last report saying I'd "be out looking for some browns" ... well I didn't have to look far and landed several nice fish in a few hours. But it has got much tougher since.
 A lot more browns visible throughout the river now and although they're easily spotted in Admirals, Duchess or Cattle Rustlers there are less frustrating places to fish for them.
In saying that, persistence can pay off.
I was about to cross back to the TLB below Cattle Rustlers and got talking to another angler casting to a brown just a couple of rod lengths out in the tail of the pool. He'd already put his dry and dropper over the fish a dozen times without even a flicker of interest but he told me that a few days before he'd done the same thing here with another fish. After countless refusals it sucked in the nymph and he landed an eight pounder.
The rain also seems to have encouraged more rainbows to move up and over the past week there have been some great conditioned fish caught.
We experienced similar runs a little earlier last year and I remember fishing with Glenn Goode one afternoon when he landed a cracking six pound hen in the Stag.
Against my better judgement I found myself fishing the same pool with Mike Fransham on Monday. We'd arranged it over dinner at his place the night before and to be honest I only agreed to it after another guest Peter Jones had begged me to go because he didn't fancy spending his first outing on the Tongariro alone with "Fransham".
If you follow the reports you'll remember that Mike is a long haul pilot, as is Peter. One of the side effects of prolonged air travel is wind ... and I don't mean air turbulence wind. As the pressure drops during a flight the gases in your abdomen expand and have to go somewhere ... usually straight up the nose of others in the vicinity. Airline companies are aware of this unpleasant phenomenon and meals provided for passengers and crew are designed to include foods that help reduce this. Unfortuunately Mike suffers with chronic, uncontrollable flatulence wherever he is. In fact the first time I fished with him I thought he was standing on a duck! Any little bit of excitement starts him off and if you look at the image above you can see he's just about to " squeeze one out" as he helps Peter unhook his first ever Tongariro rainbow. Despite the noise it turned out to be quite a successful session with some good rainbows landed and a couple of browns hooked and lost.
  If you fish the Tongariro regularly I'm sure at some time or other you'll have caught rainbows that have this odd looking mouth. They look more like mahi mahi than trout! I've caught a couple like it recently and wondered why they get this deformity so I emailed Michel Dedual. I have to thank Michel because he never fails to respond and I always learn a new word. This time its "heterozygocity" which according to a dictionary explanation means having dissimilar pairs of genes for any hereditary characteristic ... I think!
Michel replies :
Hi Mike
Yes I have seen that type of deformity before. The causes can be multiple, it can be a injury to the face at an early stage of development when fish are more fragile, it can also be caused by a previous capture when the fish was small and poorly released although I doubt it as generally in these cases the deformity is not symmetrical but more obvious on one side of the face. It can also be caused by exposure to toxins or infections.
However, I suspect that a genetic defect may have caused this deformity. Generally some genetic defects arise when the population has been through a bottleneck resulting in a less diverse gene pool (less heterozygocity). The Taupo trout population has been through a bottleneck as the population was built from the eggs of only a few fish. The extensive genetic study that we did a few years ago proved that the heterozygocity of Taupo trout was indeed less than in the original population in California.
Every year we get and record fish similar to yours at Waipa Trap indicating that despite this ugly deformity fish can still feed and mature sexually. As usual this is the trend in such occurrences that is the key, an obvious increase in such deformities would tell us that something more concerning is happening warranting further investigation.
This is important for the anglers to report any suspect fish or suspect behaviour as we need you to help us to manage this fishery. Your input is appreciated.
Kind regards and tight lines
Michel
 
So all in all a pretty good week on the river.
Just a few days to Autumn and already its worth carrying a fleece in the rucksack ... its a little parky until the sun gets up.
The cicadas are beginning to quieten down and although I'm getting the occasional fish going for the big dry I haven't found it that good. I was catching a few fish from a slowish run the other day and spotted this fella plop into the water upstream. It struggled and protested all the way down to me and wasn't touched.
Bits of rain forecast but the outlook has changed repeatedly over the last week. If we get it things should keep ticking over and look out for those big browns.
Tight lines guys
Mike |
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