Weather: 19°C Mostly cloudy with periods of sunshine
Tongariro River Flow: 25.1 cumecs (m³/s)
The river is running low and clear at present, but unlikely to be for long with the cyclone coming late tonight and staying until Monday evening.
An obvious weather warning to all anglers for the coming few days as high winds and heavy rain is expected across most of the country.
The fishing next week should be fantastic with spawning fish expected to run with the higher flows and darker conditions following the weather front. Dirty water calls for large profiled streamers and big heavy nymphs, targeting the edges and eddies for sheltering fish.
Bad weather calls for some fly tying and fishing shopping from the sofa! Have a look through the tying materials to make sure you've got enough heavy beads, marabou, hackle, wire and chenille for the woolly bugger streamers for the coming winter. Try putting some trigger colours in for the spawning fish, who seem to react and eat aggressively on the bright purples, pinks, blues and oranges. Try adding some Sili legs to your streamer patterns to add some excellent movement to really entice those stroppy fish into a solid eat. We have a wide range of colours and patterns available.
Pete and I headed out last week to practice spey casting the Skagit heads on the double handers and had great fun in the lower flows, using lighter Mow tips and lightly to unweighted streamers. Pete loves his #3 Redington Claymore Double Hander, which pairs beautifully with the 300 grain Rio Skagit, and varied Rio Mow tips, depending on flow rates. Of course Pete followed me through the run and caught the fish I left behind, minus the small guys!
Take care out there for the rest of the weekend guys, tie down your garden ornaments and bring the washing in!
Tight lines team,
Rosie