Wow, have you ever said this fishing thing is too much to handle? No, me neither but timewise it is near to impossible to make videos of everything we do. We have been putting "shorts" up on YouTube and they seem to get a lot of views. The whole idea is to get more subscribers to make doing all of this worthwhile. They are meant to be viewed on a cell phone so that is why they are tiny on a computer screen.
On the 13th of March Dan and I floated the Rangitaiki in Waiohau. The plan was for Dan to do some nymphing and knock off some more nymph patterns. We literally have not nymphed at all this season and some of these runs must be loaded with trout. Unfortunately, the green algae growing on the rocks was floating along in the water column. You could not make a single drift without having to clean your flies off. I think it is a combination of the change of season and the changes of flow for hydroelectric power generation. I can say it was the same when I took Blair 9 March.
So we quickly changed plans and decided to knock off some dry fly patterns that have not caught fish for us yet. It was extremely windy and made fishing very difficult as the day went on. It also seemed very clear that the trout were very spooky in the wind. That and trying to convince them to eat something not on the menu was a real challenge later in the day. We failed to catch a trout on a green beetle. So I am starting to believe these trout can be selective at times. I hate to admit it but the end of the day was a complete failure. We managed to land trout on four new patterns today: coch y bondhu, parachute black cricket, twilight beauty, and love's lure. We also got one on a Dad's favourite.It was a good result considering the trout were eating caddis flies.
The next day I took Larry and we headed up to the top of Lake Aniwhenua. I had not fished there in years from what I can remember and it did not disappoint at all. In fact, I am wondering why I have neglected it so long. The river and all of its channels leading into the lake are full of fish. And yes they are very spooky in these low and clear conditions. There are a few spring creeks leading into the swamp and lake. One of them had a lot of large, cruising browns and provided a serious challenge for Larry. He hooked a beauty on a marabou damsel nymph. He just about had it landed but wound up too much line so there was only about a metre of tippet out the end of his rod. The big brown made one more run and it was all over.
Larry also missed one of those browns with a Goddard Caddis and the rest of them were just too selective to fool. The river channels and where river entered the lake provided many rainbows and browns of all sizes. Damsels nymphs, bead head krystal olive buggers, olive buggers, and bead head bloodworms worked equally well. It was just too windy to think about a dry fly out in the open. I will definitely be heading back there soon.
The very next day I headed out to sea with some mates out of Tauranga. We wound up fishing until dark and caught our limits of snapper and quite a few red (golden) snapper. We processed and cleaned up the next morning.
Yesterday (18th) I took Steve down the Rangitaiki from Murupara. I had prepared a selection of caddis dry flies to bring along and left them at home. We had some awesome sight fishing with what I had available. Elk hair caddis and Adams Irresistible dry flies were the stars, hands down. We found the trout a little picky again at times. Once a trout rises to a fly and rejects it, chances are not good of catching it with the same fly. That was when the change to the Adams Irresistible worked a treat. A parachute pheasant tail, klinkhammer, and rubber legged stimulator all worked well too. I got some great footage but unfortunately the SD card errored in the Go Pro 10 and all was lost.
Tomorrow I am taking my son, Jack Brown, down the Rangitaiki River for a fish. This time we will start below the Dam at Matahina and fish down to Te Teko. I have not been down there since last season. Jack will mostly spin fish as it is a big river but there will be a few spots to flick a dry fly if he is keen. We might try our new wasp dry fly pattern; I am starting to notice more of them falling in the water recently.
