Just back from a four day trip to fish the Tauranga-Taupo River near Taupo, Central North Island, New Zealand.
On the face of it the fishing should have been hard, the river was low and very clear, the sun was summer shining, and it was blowing hard, at times very hard.
But the river was stacked with fish. There were good numbers of rainbows making their way up-river to spawn, and bigger numbers of fish making their way back down to the lake. Even managed to bag a nice 5ish pound Brown trout – nice surprise.
The fish were not big, but big enough, and the fish in the photo was pretty typical.
The river may have been stacked with fish, but there were very few anglers about, most of the time I was alone. Bliss!
Mostly used a ‘hopper-dropper’ setup; the dropper being one of Chris Dore’s Glister nymphs. I had these in a range of sizes and weights (including un-weighted). The ‘Hopper’ was a butt-ugly foam fly of my own twisted imagination which despite appearances was monstered by more than a few fish.
I don’t think I casted ‘blind’ over the whole 4 days – just cast to sighted fish.
Just a quick note, my trip was timed on the basis of a very successful trip same time last year, and year before. I am not a regular diary keeper, but do keep notes on successful trips.
