Many of you who have followed us will have heard about Michael. He came to me at age 14 or so as a mad keen wannabe trout fisherman to get some flies. I remember the fire in his eyes and I recognised it from my youth. Coming from a family that did not hunt, he was soon tagging along with us on culling missions. He shot his first stag 12 years ago on a canoe trip down the Whakatane river using a WWII .303 with open sights. We all took canoes down the river and he walked the whole thing!
Fast forward a decade or more and he is all grown up. First he became a legend hunter and now he has moved on to his second boat. I have to admit, he is becoming a bit of a legend jigging for trout. Jack and I had a trip with him last season and it was nothing short of awesome. We will be back out with him at some point but he is pretty popular with his mates and family these days. Everyone wants to fish with Michael.
So we have a new range of epoxy eyed jigging smelt with short shank hooks instead of the regular long shank streamer hook. Why you ask? There has been a lot of feedback that people want smaller flies for jigging so they think they want a smaller hook size. I reckon you are pushing it using smaller than a size 8 hook so we just reduced the shank length to make a smaller fly. It does make sense that the early season sees juvenile smelt and young bullies swimming around. So match the hatch early on and use bigger flies towards the end of the season, right?
So I loaded Michael up with two of each of the short shanked jigging smelt and and a bunch of other patterns both proven and not on Rotoiti. His mission was to catch a trout on every one and send me a photo and a few words to describe the experience.
So on New Year's Day Michael and his Dad, Peter, went for a fish on Rotoiti. So they set up the normal rig with three flies with the epoxy eyed short shanked baby rabbit as the bottom fly. Michael said, 'Every single fish today was on the baby rabbit. They wouldn't touch anything else. I need some more; broke them all off.'
So I asked him about the other bully imitations, Mrs Simpson and krystal olive smelt. He said they were being very fussy and that maybe it was the red in the baby rabbit that did it.
The funny thing is that they only had one each and still managed to fill a bunch of hooks in the chiller. Eventually, they both broke off. Michael reckoned once the bottom fly is hooked up, the other two flies go spastic and that triggers the reaction strike from the next rainbow. "That was the only time the fish would take the other flies." Just imagine two or even three five pound rainbows smashing in different directions. There is no leader than can withstand that kind of pressure. "We broke off multiple flies while fighting fish", said Michael.
I guess that is the curse when jigging. You could always use just one fly if you think you are that good.
"A couple of other guys out there I know and were fishing next to us only got one or two fish."
I think Michael mentioned where he got the baby rabbits from...
