Tongariro River Flow: 29.4m3/sec
Weather: Cloudy
The clouds are rolling back in above Turangi but the rain has held off for now and it is warm and overcast. Those who are out are once again finding success utilising either dry dropper or light indicator rigs with size 16 nymphs. We still patiently wait for the stream mouth fishing to fire, those who are willing to put in the time are starting to come across a few nice silver rainbows and the odd brown trout. Pat Swift smelt flies have been working very well leading into the evening with a black woolly bugger or lumo doll fly proving effective after dark.
Boat fishermen have noticed an increase in catch rate especially for those jigging, with harling or trolling producing well early in the morning. We have a good number of rod and reel combos for all these methods and now is a great time for an upgrade before your Christmas break. Tim has tied 40 jig rigs utilising a variety of lures which are also tied by the man himself!
Andrew and I hit up Lake Rotoaira for a spontaneous day of loch style fly fishing, and at first it appeared to be a calm day on the water, but it quickly turned out to be very windy.
The fishing kicked off to a great start with hard fighting fish on each line, but as the wind continued to pick up speed, we soon found ourselves fishing dirty water and finding more debris on the end of the fly than fish. With some brainstorming and curiosity, we changed location and found isolated areas holding clean water and fish. We both used intermediate lines, the RIO Camolux for Andrew and the RIO Aqualux for me, stripping two or three slightly weighted wooly buggers.
Following on from the previous report we will begin the discussion about fly lines and kicking off with the RIO Gold. This is a favourite line for most of us in the shop as it can be applied to summer and winter fisheries due to its ability to cast weighted and unweighted flies of various sizes at close range or distance with great stability due to the taper design and head length of 47'
It's the go-to line for my 9ft 6wt Sage X which I use on the Tongariro all year round. It turns over indicator rigs with heavy tungsten beaded nymphs during winter, and come to summer it presents large and small dry flies with ease.
The Gold, Elite or Premier are available in various weights to suit the rod of your picking. The differences between Elite and Premier comes down to the technology of each line, the Elite having the ConnectCore Plus technology which means low-stretch and high durability. Both lines have the SlickCast coating technology which makes casting smooth and effortless due to less friction.
If you or someone you know is after a floating line to cover the rivers throughout the year, then this would be our recommendation.
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Don't forget to ask us any questions via email: sport.life@xtra.co.nz