Weather: 20°C and overcast today, with light to no winds
Tongariro River Flow: 21.2 cumecs (m³/s), a very slight increase in flow following light showers overnight.
With heavy rain forecast for mid-week, we could see some fresh browns moving up and the very start of the early rainbow spawning run begin.
There have been reports of fresh run rainbows slowly trickling up the Tongariro and others have seen rainbows spawning in the shallows in localised places. I headed out last night to sight fish brown trout on the edges and after spooking the challenging brownies I was targeting, was pleasantly surprised with this lovely fresh run rainbow.
Josh and I headed along the Tongariro on Wednesday, armed with passion vine hoppers, grey bodied parachute adams and cicadas. No luck on cicadas but the smaller dries were doing the damage!
Gary has sent some photos in having hit the backcountry with cicadas last week and found some great conditioned fish as always! Nice work Gary! He's been fishing with the magical Sage R8 which really is our favourite rod at the top of it's game. We are currently carrying 5wts to 8wts in this model, so make sure you're ready for winter and don't be afraid to treat yourself for the approaching fish-filled winter months.
Jigging reports have been excellent around the 30-40m mark where the thermocline is established. The Pat Swift jig rigs and smelt flies have been doing very well as always and changing your bottom fly to something with a bigger profile such as a crayfish pattern, woolly bugger or bully pattern has also been working well.
Lake Otamangakau re-opens today for the last of the summer season on the lake. We wish all the anglers out there a great day and success!
See you out there,
Rosie