Gareth, I recently fished western bays rips with a friend and we caught some excellent rainbows and several browns. The size of the fish was surprisingly good. Fat well conditioned rainbows.
A fish that seems overly slimy can be a few things. Typically fish that are stressed, have been handled a lot, or have some sort of fungus will put their immune systems into overdrive and produce more slime coat. It’s their way to try and protect themselves from getting sick. Shouldn’t need to worry unless you notice a lot of different fish like that. If you do notice a lot of fish like that, notify your fish and game so they can do some tests to make sure nothing is in the waterway harming the fish. Hope that helps!
Love your videos great day of fishing and great videos much like you I would have loved to see those tanks you had hooked but that's fishing my friend and even the best fishing flies have such tiny hooks I think that's part of the reason so many of the bigger fish are lost but there's nothing you can really do about it just keep doing what you doing great job
Never Seen anyone tie 3x tippet to a 4x leader? But absolutely stellar you dont have to put up with guide boats even when the water is so low they need wheels, like in Montana
I too like a long leader. I'll give you a tip so you can use one leader for the entire season. I buy a Rio 9' 3X or a 9' 4X and add a 1.5 mm tippet ring to the end of the leader. Then depending on what size fly I'll be using I tie a piece of 4X or 5X Rio 3-4 feet long to the other side of the tippet ring. Then as the tippet gets shorter I just clip it off and tie on a new tippet. The base leader is still fine and I use it for months.
For extra stealth I tie a perfection loop on the end of my Leader and tippet and Connect Them loop too loop. Then i pre-rig combinations of flies for easy switching between rigs. Lasts Forever with a good knot
Mate, did you wade across the river - noticed that you swapped banks part way through the upper section and can't remember a bridge in that area. Thanks for the tips and tricks. I had to laugh when you were ripping at the flies stuck in the tree behind you. I have wasted so much time trying to find broken off rigs on the tongariro - you'd think it'd be easy, but they are incredibly hard to find. One of life's mysteries.
Hi Gareth, I saw on your left wrist a black bracelet with large knots. This is similar to a bracelet made out of elephants hair (now prohibited trade item) that a lot of old Afrikaans use to wear for protection against “evil spirits”! Obviously it’s not, otherwise you would not have dropped those fish! Thanks for some great fishing, I have just today had to cancel my trip to the Tongariro as I come within that “over 80 category” that have to stay at home and watch you young ones skite about the huge browns that I could have, may have hooked into. Harera
The first fly you showed looks quite a lot like the Shop-Vac nymph. See one from Slide Inn : www.slideinn.com/product/shop-vac-fly/ The last one ( C3 101 ) resembles other stone flies. I normally fish Pat's Rubber Legs on the Madison River in Montana--often with great success. I'll give the C3 101 a try as it would like different from the ones everyone else is chucking. Thanks for your videos. I enjoy them quite a lot. Especially now that we may not leave the house due to the coronavirus lock-down.
It's interesting, I don't think we have the classic insect hatches that many other countries have. Certainly in the central North Island where Gareth lives. There's a short terrestrial season, cicadas and blowflies etc,but the trout diet here doesn't seem to include as much top water feeding. Also, the Tongariro is a river where the trout mostly run up from the lake to spawn from autumn to spring - and they don't rise to flies as much. They never rise in winter. There is a caddis hatch which occurs mostly in the dark in summer on that river where Gareth was fishing in this vid.
Very dull looking fly selection, do you not subscribe to the hot spot religion? What your doing certainly works well just thought it was interesting when you see some of the competition fly boxes looking like candy.
