Weather: Cool sunny day today with highs of 15°C
Tongariro River Flow: 31.4 cumecs (m³/s)
The Tongariro is running crystal clear once again, but still with a good flow. Caddis flies are a go-to at the moment because of higher flows making them more mobile in the system. Remember to scale down on your indicator size and leader thickness, using smaller flies with slightly smaller beads.
The sunny conditions should see mayfly activity, with the odd fish likely rising to mayfly emergers and of course feeding sub-surface on pheasant tail nymphs. Don't expect to see it, but don't put the dry fly box away just yet as the opportunity could easily present itself in the early afternoons.
The swinging has been good at the lower reaches early in the morning in the clear conditions and then higher up the river in the shadows in the late afternoons. Smaller olive and brown woolly buggers, rabbits and intruders are hot favourites for the running fish.
The river mouths have slowed down again with the lighter flows and with the rain forecast for early next week, this should pick up again along with a fresh wave of fish coming up the systems.
A few of the Sporting Life team managed to fish together on Tuesday on the Tongariro and found some great fresh fish amongst some good resident fish. We are pleasantly surprised with the remaining good numbers of browns still present!
Something good to be aware of after a hot discussion today in the shop, look after your eyes! Always, always, always wear glasses of some sort while fishing! Even or especially at night, a safety glass will suffice. A scary story from a customer has reminded us that we only have one set of eyes and we should look after them, especially now those heavier winter beads are in the air once again. We have a range of Shimano & Tonic polarised sunglasses instore to protect your eyes from flying hooks!, help you see through to the riverbed for sight casting and make for easier wading when working through a pool.
As the nights grow longer, many of us have more time to spend on the vice, prepping our winter flies for the awesome season ahead. We have some good starter clamp vices instore along with freestanding vices. The Stonfo Kaiman Vise - 609 is a great freestanding and tidy rotary design, which increases the speed of dubbing, soft hackle, wire etc with adjustable rotary tension. It's also easily adjustable to different angles and heights, making it easy to continually tie tiny nymphs, to larger streamers, to saltwater flies.
Regardless of the fishing, it's a great time to be out there with the lovely autumnal colours and the easy non-slippery wading, following the large flood who has cleaned up the river for us nicely. Rain is forecast for the coming week, which should continue to push those silver bars upstream! What a time to be alive!
See you out there team!
Rosie & Gary