Fly Fishing on Mohaka River

I have been guiding a lot on the Mohaka River over the last couple of weeks and the fishing has been very good with lots of very well conditioned wild rainbow trout being landed.  The fish in this river are something else they run like freight trains, often taking you down to the backing.  Most fish were caught on small brown stone fly nymphs #16 although in the afternoons when things warmed up the fish really

started rising in the tails of the pools and once i figured out what they were rising to they were very easy to hook.  This time of year on that river is lace moth time and once the fish get tuned in on these moths they can get very selective so make sure if you are planing a trip down there to put a few lace moth patterns in your box.

As for the local rivers the Tongariro River is really starting to fish well again, we had some good rain over the weekend and it seems to have pushed an early run of rainbow trout in.  These trout are fresh run and very silver.  Tom was in the shop and got me to tie him up some large #10 glo bugs and was having some luck with them. There are still allot of large Brown trout in the river and most have been getting caught on brown wooly buggers fished across and down on sinking lines.

On Lake Otamangakau the fishing has been very good with reports of large rainow trout getting caught mostly on blood worm nymphs and damsel nymphs.  The temprature has really dropped over the last few days and it will really put a hold on the insect hatches up there.  I was up there on Saterday before the cold spell.  I was trying out one of our new kick boats, these are great little boats with oars and flippers very easy to manouvre around the weed beds  and very stable  and safe.  There were plenty of fish rising and I got 2 nice brown trout on a Daddy long legs dry fly.  This fly is not often used in New Zealand and I dont know why as they certainly catch fish, when you look at these flies they are so buggy looking that they can immitate anything from the crane fly to  an adult damsel or a caddis fly.  Well enjoy the fishing while the weather is slill good and tight lines

Cheers Marcel