Wow – just for a change TRM have a fishing update.
If you have read between the lines successfully you will realise the Tongariro results have not been the best lately as TRM Daily Reports have not commented on them for yonks. So thank you for your patience!
This is always a tricky time to report on the Tongariro fishing when so many anglers are waiting anxiously for confirmation of the big cicada hatch? Sadly, so far (?) this season it is a non-event. (aka fake news?) Although cicadas have been buzzing up in Auckland they have not been feeding the trout here.
The wary cicadas can take anywhere between 3 to 18 years waiting for suitable conditions to emerge (so they say?). This year it looks like they have preferred to wait another season underground.
Perhaps it is due to unusually strange weather patterns (global warming?) with barometric pressures plunging from two tropical cyclones and then varying to colder than usual temperatures resulting in the Tongariro fishing being even more erratic than ever.
On fine days boat anglers on Lake Taupo have done well jigging and trolling and returning some trout in great condition, but most of our inmates are real fly fishermen so the reports are prepared more for them.
The only consistent pattern we have seen from TRM inmates has come from wet lines dredging the bottom after dark with black woolly buggers to entice big browns.
On right above is John Porteous from Ballarat who reported some good catches, but as he keeps returning them we had to find some older images from 2007 and 2012 to convince you.
On right below is Jozef from Slovenia with evidence of his efforts after dark.
Generally they report more consistent results over the last month. But the same trout often refuse to take daytime flies.
Then there is Lake O… The usual stories of anglers getting “smoked” by giant trout… Then from a usually reliable source – did you hear about the 14 pounder landed there last week?
But generally Lake O results continued to be typical Lake O!. The changeable weather conditions altering the lake levels daily do not help. Some days produce wonderful results when they take anything being offered, other days the trout just switch off and refuse to react to anything. Very typical.
TRM also have a daily diary summary of an inmate’s fishing results at Lake O for 100 days (!!!) of fishing since 2012. Lake O anglers will be surprised when they read the result.
Such a longer period – 100 days over five years – is necessary for any meaningful analysis to compensate for wildly varying weather conditions etc. The entire fishing time was during peak holidays with high angler pressure over Christmas-New Year and Easter.
For a sneak preview, ask SWMBO at reception – we promise you will be astonished…
Just as important, ask Her about the same fly used….
Overall, TRM’s Lake O addicts have all been successful but that is also due to their detailed local knowledge and persistence (aka their relentlessly positive attitude?). Try fishing for 11 hours a day… For the varying conditions that have shown amazing patience and endurance and thoroughly deserve their success.
Images at top and on right are Robbie & Maggie Cadogan from Auckland. They have been concentrating most of their fishing on Lake O for many years and are some of the most reliable inmates who have been returning from Lake O with some excellent big fat trout up to 8 pound over the last ten days.
By the time we get their selected few for the freezer they have cleaned the trout and removed the heads so again we have used some older images since 2008 to show what their typical trout have been like.
The river mouths have been more consistent with the stand-out being the Tongariro Taupo (“TT”) mouth recently.
We do not usually refer tourist inmates there as it can be dangerous unless they have been there before to know exactly where the “drop-off” is.
Others reporting regular catches include Denis Renard from New Caledonia. Again, on right, is an older photo as his 2018 haul has been cleaned and filleted by the time SWMBO finds out.
There are always exceptions of course. Last, the image below is Scott Collins (aka “Blondie” – but that is Trev’s story) from Auckland – one of the TRM’s more relentlessly positive Tongariro River anglers.
SWMBO believes his results are a reasonably reliable barometer of how the Tongariro is performing. He landed 9 over two days – 8 Rainbows released and 1 Brown trout below. This visit was unusual as he managed to catch two trout twice! First when a rainbow trout returned to the same lie immediately after he released it and attacked the same nymph again. This shows how quickly some trout can recover – provided they are released carefully… Then Scott managed it again with the 7 pound brown in the image below – caught and escaped on Saturday, then caught (and kept) again early on Sunday morning in the same spot.
(This C&R – catch & release – topic is worth a separate report, which TRM will post tomorrow.)
