After a couple of nice sunny days we woke to gray skies and rain showers this morning. It held off for most of the day but it looks to be setting in again now as we finish up in the shop, it could be a wet evening with the chance of a slight rise in flow for tomorrow. No promises but it can only help to keep the late stragglers moving up the rivers. it has been steady on 24.4cumec and clear today.
Most anglers we have had through the shop over the last few days seem pretty stoked with their captures with good numbers of fresh chromers mixed in with Rainbows returning to the lake to fatten up. Tarn and Theresa should be out there making the most of the conditions today and I look forward to hearing how they got on.
It is starting to feel like Spring now with the spindly town trees and river willows beginning to get new season buds, the sounds of birds pairing up and singing is easily heard all along the river and is music to my ears. I was out for an evening walk yesterday and noticed for the time the tell tail rings of feeding fish looking up and eating the small Mayflys as they hatch and sail along with the steady flow. It's time now to break out the light rods and throw small dry flys at them. It's early days but it will get better as warmer evenings arrive.
Andrew and Claudio hit the Tongariro on the weekend to see if any Brown Trout were starting to hang on the edges. These guys are a couple of weapons when they put their joined skills together and it comes as no surprise that it was mission accomplished with a couple of golden fish to hand. Going forward it might now be time to start stacking the flybox with chunky rabbit fur flys for late evening forays to the rivers and stream mouths to tempt the big Browns that show up in the next few months.
Skinny water speedsters from my last trip away are still stuck in my mind and it will be a while until opportunity arrives to see them again, until then my salty focus will be closer to home and aimed at our Kingfsh, Kahawai and Snapper which are worthy substitutes. If you have an interest in these targets I can vouch for the effectiveness of the new Sage R8 Salt flyrods. The 7wt was a joy to use on the Bonefish and the 11wt had no problems pulling up some solid Giant Trevally, these rods and the 8, 9 and 10wt will handle anything to be found around the NZ coastline.
Sage Salt R8 Fly Rod - NEW! – Sportinglife Turangi (sportinglife-turangi.co.nz)
Neil