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Not much to report.
Wed 22nd June, 2016
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Not much of a report this week but I think its fair to say I'm not the only one finding things tough out there!
Every so often we get these down turns in the fishing and so far this year its turning out to be a disappointing "season". Personally, I think that up to now, the size, condition and numbers are down on recent years but it's not the first time its happened and certainly won't be the last.
After last nights rain, the flows looked to have peaked around 37 cumecs this afternoon. But as I'm writing this its started again. We need it ... because for the last ten days its been fairly low and clear. There aren't huge numbers of fish in the river and the fish that are there seem to be pretty finicky. I've been using lighter tippets and sometimes smaller flies to get a few takes but even that hasn't always worked. I've hooked up ... but size 18's wouldn't normally be my first choice on the Tongariro.
 As an example ... I was first in at the head of Judges one morning and after a few fly changes had a total score of zilch!
I'd tried all the usual stuff. But with nowhere on the river fishing particularly well I decided to stay put, persevere and experiment a bit.
I'm guessing the most popular size of nymphs used on the river are 14's. They always seem to be the ones they run out of first when you go to a tackle store to pick up some flies.
I rarely find the need to go smaller than a 16 and yet if you turn over a few rocks the majority of nymphs and larvae on the underside will be a lot smaller ... especially in winter.
Anyway I changed to a caddis pupa ... size 18 and hooked three fish in half an hour.
I say hooked because I lost all three of them!
May be with plenty of insects around and fewer fish chasing them the trout get a little picky.
May be it was just coincidence that I'd tied on a smaller fly just as a few fish turned up.
May be it was a lot of things.
But if it was coincidence this sort of thing has happened hundreds of times over the years.
 
I've just had a glance at the flow graph again and its dropping back at the moment.
At this time of year you would expect this to have a beneficial affect on the fishing but we've had a couple of freshes recently and they made very little difference.
Its easy to get a bit frustrated when the fishing's slow. But its important not to lose sight of how fortunate we are to have a river like the Tongariro at our disposal 365 days a year!
For most overseas fly fishermen that's the stuff dreams are made of ... give me slow days rather than no days anytime.
So as I upload this report no sign of any big runs and the fishing seems to be pretty ordinary again. I've had a few jacks this week in full spawning colors and the odd fresh silver hen amongst the others ... but not many ... and no big fish.
Another spell of unsettled, wet weather coming up which should at least put some color and volume in the river.
We'll see how much we get.
   
Tight lines
Mike |
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