Winter Isn't All Bad

Well apart from not doing much on here in the past few days, unfortunately we haven't doing much fishing either.  A lot of local rivers are closed and the ones that aren't are water logged and blow out with the slightest amount of rain so that doesn't help much at all.

This being said, most lakes are open to shore fishing and the Taupo fishery has fired over summer so should be looking good for the winter spawning runs. Best thing to do before heading for a fish is to check the river levels and how much they have fluctuated over the past few days to week (depending on the river). The best place to check this is on the local council website for the area. They generally have a link to river level monitors in the area.

Once you can be sure that the river will be at least fishable, jump in the car and fang it to the river. Fish every run and riffle you can find and use brighter flies if the water is at all coloured up, orange being the most popular this time of year. Nymphing will be the most popular method for most people but be sure to have a few streamer patterns in the fly box to lure those big trout out of the depths. Either take weighted streamers or use a sinking leader/end of line of some sort.

While the lack of fishing has kept me inside, I have tied a ton of flies of all shapes and sizes and hopefully one of these hideous creations manages to hook a nice big fatty! Also there has been a fair bit of unused footage to pour through so I have chucked together a little mash-up clip of our last trip out for the regular season.
Just a bunch of mucking around and we managed a few fish so it was tops.






It's not much but it makes me feel better than leaving the footage sitting on my hard drive doing feck all. Enjoy!