The superb fishing continued over the weekend with several anglers achieving PB’s. Most comment has been more to do with the condition factor of trout released than the numbers – i.e. From TRM Facebook:
We asked Duncan Frew (editor of North Shore Fly Fishing Club newsletter) if TRM could mention his name but he preferred not, so we can only refer to him as an anon TRM inmate. His experience was not unique.
A good example of the fishing at the moment was from an anon TRM inmate who landed over 40 yesterday on the Tongariro River, plus lost far too many more. Where, which pool? I hear you ask. Somewhere down river is about as close as he would reveal despite intensive interrogation by SWMBO. What a wonderful season…
(Guess where I will be for the rest of the week…)
Tongariro Insects
TRM keep a glass container with some dried out representatives of local insects to show visiting anglers the relative size – see on right – compared to what they are used to…
Recently TRM commented on the large size of trout in this Taupo region being a direct reflection of the volume and size of their main food source – smelt. But once they move into the rivers on their spawning runs their diet changes to available insect life. Anglers from overseas advise they are constantly amazed at the relative size of NZ insect life.
Once the trout enter the river system they have to completely change their diet – after three years chasing smelt around Lake Taupo they have to quickly adjust to decide between these yucky unfamiliar creepy crawlies. The two main types of trout tucker are:
“Terrestrials” including brown beetles, green manuka beetles, cicadas, wetas, bees, blowflies, wasps, crickets, mice and even ducklings.
“Aquatics” from the stream/river include mayflies, caddis, stoneflies which very from emerging nymph stage to newly hatched duns to mature adults laying eggs or spent mayflies.
TRM need to point out the writer has limited knowledge and no qualifications to advise on these – other than to impress upon new inmates the relative size of NZ insects compared to what they are used to.
Recently an angler was inquiring about the sort and sizes of flies he needed to tie for his New Zealand fishing safari next February. We provided the usual Tongariro River nymphing and dry fly recommendations of Hare & Copper bombs with Pheasant Tail variants in sizes 10-14, plus a few dry flies and cicada imitations of course. As usual we suggested that delicate accurate casting “presentation” was more important on the Tongariro than the choice of fly, as these are not picky river trout but rather lake trout that have moved into the rivers to spawn. So they are out of their natural environment and at first do not even know what they are looking for. Often their feeding habit is more competitive mating behaviour just to grab a floating insect thingy ahead of a rival jack.
He questioned this and checked on the suggested sizes as he was more used to tying up size 18-20 hooks for his trip. That is not unusual. So we sent him the image above to encourage him to tie larger flies than what he was used to.