Blair came and stayed last night as we hoped to float from Rabbit Bridge early. He showed up just as I was going to lay down, so I did not have to entertain him. I was up at midnight, 0300 then got out of bed at 0430. I did some work then woke up Blair at 0530. We had a fat boy, a meat kebab and a coffee each as we left Awakeri around 0600.
We floated down from the bridge and Blair had a play with a spinner while I set up my fly rod. We got to what I call, "river meets lake", you will know it if you see it. There is a slight drop off. I tied on some tippet and a bead head krystal olive bugger for Blair. Blair has been a poor caster so I showed him how to do it, again. I missed the strike on the second cast. Then I set my rod up with a Parachute Dad's Favourite. I missed the first fish, hooked up briefly, then lost another.
Hours went by with occasional rises but no landed fish. I just kept missing fish. The parachute Dad's favourite had taken a beating so I changed it out for a pheasant tail dry fly. The breeze had come up from the north and sunshine was intermittent with a forecast of rain for mid afternoon. There were some mayflies emerging after all.
Blair was on the phone when he hooked up with a nice rainbow on the standard bead head krystal olive bugger. So he was pretty happy to land the first fish of the day!
Then we had some sunshine amongst the clouds. As soon as we had full sun, trout were rising all around us on the flats. The problem was these fish were moving fast and jumping instead of slowly rising. There were some mayflies emerging and the trout were following them into the sky. It makes individual trout really hard to target.
Then, after hours of casting dries, I hooked up to a really good rainbow who ran and jumped all over the place. Then I lost him, doh! The fly does not count unless we land the fish. Not long after, I ticked off the pheasant tail dry fly on a medium-sized rainbow.
We moved back to where the main river channel enters the lake. That was where Blair caught his first fish. There were fish rising again so we both jumped out of the canoe onto a sand bar. I had on a Quill Gordon dry fly and Blair had a bead head krystal brown bugger.
I hooked up pretty quickly then next thing we knew, Blair was hooked up too! A double header was declared and things were looking up after many hours of inconsistent fishing. His rainbow was bigger and he let me know about it.
After that we cruised around targeting risers and never hooked another fish. Blair had never been through the swamp before so we took a little tiki tour around to look at the moulting paradise shell ducks (flappers). I must say Blair did follow my casting advice and was improving on this day. I think it is time to upgrade him with a new flyrod combo. I will go see Stacy at Hamill's Tauranga to sort it out.
