Fishing Report
Following is typical of comments from our "in tray" recently emailed by another regular Tongariro angler:
"…. I’m finding the fishing during the day is really hard at the moment – they really don’t start feeding til the evenings. I was catching 4-5 fish every afternoon that I was fishing in December/January, but now I’m down to 1-2 per afternoon, and I’ve even had a couple of fish free days. The one evening that I’ve had permission to head home late I took three out of Judges Pool in 40 minutes – I’m sure I would have taken more but they were so full of zip that it took me more than 10 minutes to land each one."
The top photo on right from Saturday is TRM guest, Bruce Kalish from USA, delighted with his five pounder plucked out of Bain Pool yesterday. He will return…
Photos below then show great teamwork between Bronwen Davies and Andy Moore from Canberra (on their honeymoon) fishing for their first time in the Tongariro River – near the Honeypot Pool. Both were astonished at the size and fighting ability of local wild rainbow trout. We tried to explain that was because they were Kiwi trout – not Australian… After they arrived on Friday afternoon we (Boof guided of course) took them to the braided area – across the main road bridge to show off all those trout lurking underneath to prepare them. Andy showed good nymphing and natural drift skills and soon landed all the smaller fish – he released five and lost two – always losing the biggest ones of course. It takes a couple of days to adjust usually. This morning they continued with Bronwen maintaining the pattern losing a big brown. So we look forward to their return…
Also pictured gearing up preparing for battle beside the bridge was keen Tongariro junkie – Steven James guiding Amanda Byrne from Taupo. Amanda was looking forward to catching her first Tongariro rainbow. They will return.
Tongariro River Flow to revert to "normal".
TRM received lots of comment (none favourable, most needed censoring) on Genesis’ management (?) of the Tongariro River flow during January….too much to reproduce but we will summarise anglers’ "colourful" opinions tomorrow.
For those unfamiliar with the situation, Genesis Energy advised the lower fishable reaches of the Tongariro River would be returned to natural levels for the first four months of 2008 when the Poutu Canal was due for maintenance. This was to be the first time in over forty years that the river would be left to nature’s whims. Genesis advised to expect an increaased flow between 45-50 m3/sec. Instead, during a dry period with minimal rain, it ran at 25 m3/sec each night, when obviously valuable water was being redirected through the canal for power usage, and then suddenly increased up to 40-44 m3/sec during daylight hours. (See Genesis graph below taken at the Major Jones Pool)
This erratic high & low, up & down pattern continued most of January. Now the commercial $ demand for power has increased Genesis have shelved the canal maintenance programme indefinitely (i.e. until the power price drops?). 