Weather: Highs of 22°C, overcast with a light south easterly breeze, with light gusts.
Tongariro River Flow: 27.5 cumecs (m³/s). The river is slightly coloured following the heavy rain two days ago but is clearing nicely and is still very fishable! Neil has kindly sent us in some photos of the river from Major Jones bridge this morning, which continues to clear as we speak. Caddis flies are a great option for the river today as the flow will have dislodged them into the feeding lanes. Try the Big T Caddis - Category 3 Fly Company, tied especially for the Tongariro river.
Welcome to the weekend fellow anglers. As the holidays draw to an end for most of us, the fishing is still well worth the weekend visits, evening rises after work and night fishing the river mouths and lake edges as the summer season continues. The night fishing is proving productive for eats but condition factors are mixed with a lot of recovering hungry rainbows. Every now and again a larger good conditioned fish will take the reel screaming into the backing, so it is well worth the visit!
Cicadas are starting to hatch in small numbers and some of us have had a few cicada eats the past week which is promising of hopefully more cicada hatches on the way, tempting fish to rise for big flies.
Lots of reports of recovering fish still in the system, especially in the lake, with some great maiden fish among them still being landed while jigging and fishing smelt patterns on the fly rod.
The brown trout are still to appear in the rivers in numbers, with the odd one being caught from the edges of the Tongariro. There have been reports of fresh silver rainbow hens still running to spawn, being caught from the big river this week which is always a great surprise. There are no rules! As Mr Carty confirms!
The Patagonia sun shirts have been essential on the water on those bright sunny days, if you're too keen to keep going like me and hate stopping to sunscreen up! A buff and sungloves also help keep you protected from the UV and keep focused on the fishing, we have options in store. The Patagonia Men's Capilene Cool Daily Hoody - Feather Grey is a popular option that is neutral coloured so won't spook those fish!
Gary has been putting some hours in over the holidays on the local lakes and pulling some beauties from the depths as always. He and his lovely girl spent Christmas day right - catching some beautiful fish on the big O!
The other local lakes at Rotoaira and Kuratau have been good fun with both streamer and dry fly action. We await the cicada and hopper action on the surface of these lakes in the coming months!
See you out there on the water guys and girls!
Rosie & Gary