Tongariro River Flow: 23.8m³/sec

Weather: Warm & Sunny

We have been graced with some amazing weather the last few days in Turangi and today is no exception with bright blue skies and barely a breath of wind to speak of. There has been great fishing on offer in all of the Taupo tributaries with plenty of recovering fish and still plenty of fresh fish still moving through. Fishing a small nymph under a dry fly has been very effective in the low clear flow, the lighter nymph lands softly and the smaller profile of the dry fly doesn't alarm the fish like a larger indicator does. If a dry fly is not your cup of tea, then the Regular NZ Strike Indicator Tool is capable of making an indicator small enough to serve the same purpose whilst also allowing for easy depth adjustment. 

Although it feels like the spring weather has well and truly set in now it looks like we are expecting a very wet and wild weekend! Hopefully it doesn't blow out too much of the insect life leading up to summer but on the other hand it could encourage another nice run of fresh fish to move through the system so we will see what happens. 

When fishing dry dropper if you feel like you are struggling to gain depth in some slightly faster or deeper slots it can pay to use a fly with a slotted tungsten bead such as the Category 3 Carpet Caddis or Tactical PT as a slotted tungsten bead is roughly 30% heavier than a standard counter sunk bead of the same diameter due to them having less material removed. So, you can still fish a fly of the same size and gain some extra depth. Both of the previously mentioned patterns came in handy the other day as a couple of us had both fished a deeper slot with a standard size 14 hare & copper with no luck. Before pushing on upstream we ran through a size 14 carpet caddis and nabbed a handful of nice fish which was a bonus for the day.