After a brief period of sunshine, the rain clouds are once again looming over the town of Turangi. The Tongariro is slowly on the rise but is still sitting at 25.2 m3/sec as of midday today. The fishing has picked up over the last couple of days with a lot of the fish that were previously occupied with spawning switching into feed mode. Dropping down to a small dry dropper rig is a great way to target these fish. The Category 3 #12 Orange Crush partnered with a #16 Hare and Copper CTB has been the preferred flies for this set up, match this with a 5wt rod and Rio Technical Trout Taper fly line and you have the perfect set up for delicately presenting your flies in the shallow riffles and runs without spooking these fish.
Winston Air2 9'0" 5wt doing the damage.
As the river continues to rise leading into the weekend, I imagine a lot of these recovering fish will get on the chew as caddis and mayfly nymphs get dislodged in the high flows. Although the system isn't chocker with them at this stage anglers are beginning to encounter the odd brown trout as they make their way up the river, it will be interesting to see if this rain encourages an early run.
Jigging has been starting to pick up on Lake Taupo with the general consensus being that the fish are in just as good of condition as last year, hopefully this form continues throughout the summer for the boat anglers. Harling has still been very productive especially in early morning with the Tassie Devils in Bengal Tiger and Silver Bullet being popular.
We're certainly looking forward to seeing what this rain brings into the system and once the weather settles, we should be set for some spectacular evening rise fishing. If you're in town over the weekend be sure to call into the store and say hello.
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