Photos below of TRM inmates wading the Tongariro River town pools around midday. There was someone in every pool. You can guess the locations. As you can see, the conditions were near perfect after a chilly night, the river was flowing around 30 cumecs and slowly going down and still held some colour with a bracing cold Southerly breeze making any accurate casting more of a challenge.
When I asked a regular TRM inmate how the fishing was yesterday – Wednesday, after the rain – he immediately suffered amnesia. That is a quite normal affliction with TRM inmates. Fortunately his fishing mate prompted him so he could not fudge it too much. He tried to change the subject and complained instead about the poor landing rate.
Then he confessed, in their first hour he mumbled something about how he hooked into 14 and only landed 3. That escape rate is a good indication of the prime fighting condition of these fresh run trout after the rain. He hooked up three times in his first five casts. Then, typically, he forgot which pool – perhaps somewhere downriver – and added to his complaint that during the afternoon session the fishing went dead. After a frantic morning’s activity, they all went to sleep. That was obviously our fault.
But the fish were definitely spooked by something. They could be clearly seen dodging the flies. This introduces one of the most mystifying issues which occurs on the Tongariro River as they were not the only complainants. Others remarked how the fishing suddenly died after 3 pm. So what caused it?
The first hypothesis is that this happens when there is a minor earthquake that we cannot feel but the trout pick up on it through their lateral line and understandably get unnerved. The pumice soils must absorb much of any movement but in the river, the fish are more sensitive and aware of any shakes.
Another theory is that they had intercepted a spawning run during the hectic morning but it had passed through the pool where they were fishing.
The third theory is that the water temperature cooled and the hatch of caddis, or whatever the trout were feeding on, was over.
Or the trout decided dinner time was over and it was time to get back to the more serious matter of spawning activities? Or perhaps they simply ran out of fish?
It works both ways. I can remember a lineup of anglers in Judges Pool patiently suffering without a bite for about half an hour when suddenly, within a couple of minutes, all five hooked up. It appeared nothing to do with the flies they were using or the casting techniques. From what I could ascertain, one at the head of the pool was wet lining, one was nymphing, one was on a dry & dropper rig, and the other was dry fly on a cicada imitation and the other “Euro-nymphing”. Later we decided it must have been more to do with water temperature initiating a hatch. Or did a spawning run suddenly arrive? Who knows? That is the joy of anticipation on the Tongariro – we never know what to expect.
