Tongariro River Flow: 23.8(m3/sec)
Weather: Fine. Southerlies, easing at night.
Reports on the river this week have been hit or miss. Generally, from what we've been hearing in the shop, anglers been relatively positive quite close to town and in the lower sections. Some are reporting fresh lake run fish, and similar stories are coming from the stream mouths.
As you can see on the Genesis chart, the Tongariro hasn't been up to too much recently. We are hoping to get some rain towards the end of next week, hopefully this will push up some fish from the lake.
As per usual in the low and clear flows we have currently, the smaller natural nymphs like the C3 Hare and Copper BTB #16 or BTB Hoover #16 has been proving its worth on the browns and rainbows. The Cicada action has come to a real stand still, unless on small water back country streams. Although I had a couple of hours free recently and took my little #4 weight with just a PMX Dry Fly and ended up with around 5 to the net, which was surprising considering I couldn't hear any Cicadas. 
As we approach the start of winter, the back country is my favourite place to be, the fish have had the entire summer to put on some good condition and can be seriously fun to catch.
Local guide Josh Hart has been doing some serious km's in the back country- putting all of his new guideline gear to the test. He's been catching some seriously nice brown and rainbows making the walking well worth his time. I don't know what he caught them on, but it was probably a Slushy/ worm variation ;).
The lake fishing has been rewarding most that have been out in the calm conditions we have had recently. People jigging to about 25-30m with ginger mick style smelt patterns have been winning. With the surface smelt activity, harling has also been a popular method.
As per usual, let us know how you all get on out there. We are always looking for photos for the next report.
Tight Lines