Good luck to everyone heading out for the first day of the new season today! The rain has been falling consistently since yesterday evening with plenty of fresh fish on the move which Tarn and I had a ball intercepting on the two handers after work. The river has come up slightly to 32.6 cumec and is looking in great condition so if your back country option has been blown out then there is always the Tongariro to come back to! We are due for more rain over the next few days so expect a few more chrome fish run up, there are plenty of coloured fish around to get a bend in the rod as well. Small olive wooly buggers did the trick for us yesterday, and while there was a few fish rising on dark it was still very sporadic. A few consistent days of warm weather are needed to really get the rise action kicking off so we are waiting patiently for that to finally arrive! We stayed till well after dark hoping to intercept a brown but no luck, in the next few weeks the odd one should start making an appearance so stock up on the big black rabbit flies and heavy tippet and get amongst it!
There has been quite a few runs in the Tongariro that have filled in significantly after the last flood so running the correct sinking line/tip can make all the difference between snagging the bottom and hooking fish. I prefer to keep my fly up off the bottom a bit for a drag free swing as it helps with not losing flies and also any taps during the swing are likely to be a fish having a crack at the fly as opposed to the fly momentarily grabbing a rock/stick etc. We have a wide range of lines available in different sink rates and also plenty of tips for the two handed crew to suit all your needs which you can check out here and here.
Connor