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Fish running all week.
Thu 28th July, 2016
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The weekend fresh did the trick and at last the fish have got the message. With increased flows and some color in the river fish have been running all week, providing great action for anglers.
Up to now the advice has been to move around and that's what I fully intended doing on Wednesday morning. But I dropped into one of the town pools {which was unoccupied} and was still there over four hours later! And no it wasn't that one, it was another one.
It was certainly the best session I've had for a while with some really nice fish landed and a few lost.
 
Fly choice was easy too ... tie on a jelly egg and hang on tight.
For the last couple of weeks I've been catching a lot of jacks but this time the majority were hens heavy with eggs.
By lunchtime things had slowed right down so I moved a little further up river and bumped into Andrew from Sporting Life. He told me it had been a similar story on the middle river.
With more rain forecast, levels will continue to yo-yo above 30 cumecs and providing it doesn't flood again there should be some excellent fishing for the rest of the week ... and beyond.
Since the last report I've been trawling the American steel-head and fly fishing sites. Trying to find out if there's any hard and fast evidence out there to substantiate whether or not rainbows eat when they enter the rivers to spawn. And there doesn't seem to be any.
Many of the facts put forward by the "no they don't believers" are taken from research carried out on salmon, which doesn't apply to rainbows.
I had an email chat with Michel about it {below} and again it seems to come down to our own experiences and the conclusions we draw from them.
"Good day Mike
Like you I guess that it depends how far they are from spawning.
Early in the season the fish entering the river are generally “green” with their eggs still maturing (vittelogenesis). To complete the eggs maturation will require some energy and so some food intake.
Later in the season fish run generally ripe and therefore the intake of food is not as crucial.
However, when males are defending redds they will be aggressive and try to chase any intruder. In this situation they will react to lures and attack them but more by aggression rather than by nutritional need.
 My own observations at the TT river mouth indicate that the majority of the fish I keep are empty or have pumice in their stomachs. But I don’t know if this is because they've only just started feeding, hence appearing as if they are not, because their stomachs are still empty.
I struggle to believe that the large intake of pumice is due to mis-identification of prey. Why pumice?
I wonder and the only thing I could think of is to keep the shape of the stomach.
Salmon don’t have this problem as their first spawning migration is their last and so they transfer the fat from the body to the eggs.
I hope this helps"
Michel
My own two cents worth ... well, I've always believed that once they've been in the river a short time they feed when they need too until very near spawning. Then cease while they have other things on their mind. Once spawning is over the surviving kelts' instinctively eat ... and eat as much as possible to regain condition lost because of the stresses of spawning. This is great news because it provides us with our Spring and Summer sport as they eat their way back to the lake.
When they first enter the river in their "heightened" state these "new" fish are pretty daft and easy to catch. For the previous couple of years they've been in the relative safety of the lake sustained by smelt. It takes a little while for them to get used to the dangers of the river and the different food supply. Put anything anywhere near them and {for now at least} it will likely get taken for one reason or another.
I'll even go along with the theory that jacks attack lures etc. while defending spawning sites purely because of an aggressive, territorial response to the "intruder" on their patch.
But what I can't bring myself to believe is that Tongariro fish only ever take anglers' flies because of some sort of built in sub-conscious response to anything that drifts near them.
Come on guys ... nymphs! I don't know how many real-life mayfly nymphs, caddis larvae or whatever float past their noses during a day ... but its a lot! If they were just curious {for want of a better word} or felt some irresistible urge to attack every single aquatic insect that came too close, they'd be so knackered, the only shag any of them would see would be one of those big black buggers that fly up and down the river all day. Why can't they be taking our imitations simply because they need the calories?
There have been some strange things found in trouts' stomachs. I recall the jack I caught in the old Braids that coughed up half a calamari and the fish Myles gutted that had a stomach-full of feathers. In both these cases they probably didn't take them because of some nutritional need ... to be honest I've no idea why they ate them.
But I don't think I'll ever be convinced that spawning fish don't sometimes feed because they need too.
So plenty of fish coming through and at the moment plenty of anglers chasing them. But its a big river and unless you're part of the welcoming committee at the Bridge pool its not usually a problem.
When the runs are on, its amazing how may times you accidentally foul hook fish. With no control of its head they can take off on seemingly unstoppable runs and give rise to the stories of another "monster trout" that got away.
The giveaway is the swimming motion you can feel when you're playing it, especially if its hooked anywhere near the tail.  
More browns hooked with the murky water helping anglers. So far only one on the bank for me this week ... Blue helped me release the other two ... early ... good dog ... #$@&%*!
Glenn sent me this pic of a six pounder he landed from the middle river. It would have been seven but he's not holding it properly.
There'll certainly be more of them caught this week!
The fish are running and with more rain on the cards and the river hovering around the high thirties, its going to be a great week.
I'll see you out there.
Mike |
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| COMMENTS |
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| Hi Mike, Interested on your comments on why they strike.A lot of my fishing is in the opposition lakes and I am not a lot wiser as to the reason for them to attack as to what I have on he end of the line.A lot of fish (especially at the end of the season ) will hit almost anything, if they will hit a glow bug as big as my beloved's powder puff or a lumo that should be on the Christmas tree it doesn't show much for them to be very selective. I have worked out that if it swims past their nose and it swims OK they will have a crack at it eventually, Regards Terry. |
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| - | Sun 31st July, 2016 | |
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| Great update Mike. Thanks for the heads up on the river levels this weekend. Oh to be retired and go when the weather suits! |
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| rob.hufton@gmail.com | Fri 29th July, 2016 | View 1 Replies |
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