Wherever you live in the world, there are only three things you need to catch a six-pound trout: a passport, a Taupo district fishing license, and some cash to get there. The action varies a little, but the big fish are there all year around.
Most overseas anglers – from Australia, the USA or the UK, pass up the New Zealand summer fishing and head for Taupo during the colder months of April to November.
In the New Zealand winter, six to eight brown and rainbow trout single-mindedly charge up the Tongariro to keep a date with what they consider to be a very sexy pile of gravel, but the fishing, like their courtship, is frantic, and it’s mostly sub-surface, with heavy tungsten nymphs.
But in the summer, from December to March, on the Tongariro, and the surrounding smaller Taupo region streams and lakes, the fishing is more relaxed and requires detailed exploration and a lot of patience, experimenting with different flies and rigs. And concentration.
On the smaller streams, during the balmy summery afternoons, the vegetation droops over the water, the cicadas are chirruping a lullaby in the bushes, and the summer hoppers are plopping gently into the stream in front of you. Then you begin to feel a part of this tranquil tableau, your concentration drifting off, when – WHAM! – a trout takes your floating dry fly only a rod length in front of you with a spectacular burst through the surface, that takes your breath away.
Lower Tongariro
If you want to try the North Island of New Zealand during the months of December to March, I’d suggest you get yourself an experienced local guide and start down the lower reaches of the Tongariro.
We began our summer fishing with guide Frank Harwood, a short drive and a walk, from Turangi township, near the Poplar Pool. This is a flood plains area, which has been hit by so many floods in recent years, that it has been deserted by the local farmers, and is normally only accessed by visitors via inflatables.
When we arrived on foot, we were stunned by the sheer size of some monster brown trout, resting in the shallows. In one case, I saw what I thought was a small log, and I almost moved on, before I saw a white flash of colour, near the front of the ‘log’. The flash turned out to be the exposed inside of the crooked bottom jaw of the biggest brown I’d ever seen not stuffed on a wall.
The Kuratau
The next day we tried a beautiful little stream on the southwestern shores of Lake Taupo, called the Kuratau, parking the car at the Kuratau Hydro station, where we entered the stream for some wet wading.
After trying a diminishing range of dry and wet fly combinations, not tested the day before on the Tongariro, we started to experiment with the bigger flies and found the best to be an Australian copy of a New Zealand Stimulator (with a dash of flash).
Frank Jones, the chair of the Australian Fresh Water Fishermen’s Assembly, made these adaptations to imitate Cicadas on southeastern Australia’s Mitta Mitta River, but obviously they work well in NZ, where they originated.
A similar fly was invented and used in Montana (USA) to imitate a Sedge Moth. Both Cicadas and Sedge Moth are fairly large and represent a really good meal, for a fish at least, hence the trout showed a little less caution when taking these and didn’t give it the critical once over before the take.
The Hinemaiaia
After a day sampling the local hot springs, my wife Jeanine and I headed for the Hinemaiaia, one of the most beautiful little streams and perfect summer fishing you could ever enjoy, along with our guide for the day, Frank’s wife Carol Harwood and black Labrador pup Tui.
Carol explained that she was taught to fly fish by Frank, 20 years ago, and it took her 11 months, watching and learning, before she started to take her own fly rod along. She was the perfect tutor for Jeanine, on her first serious fly-fishing trip.
While the rainbows were happily scoffing our by-now bedraggled stimulators in the narrower sections, the browns in the bigger pools had their mind on some serious loving.
Jeanine threw a succession of dries and nymphs over two amorous browns, but it was no use. I suspect if we’d waited long enough, a cigarette fly might have had some success, but there’s a time and a place, and we felt a little embarrassed watching really, so we left them to it.
Pictures by Jeanine McMullan