Red Tag Newsletter

CORRESPONDENCE NEIL VINCETT /BRIAN WILSON

e river I had chosen was notorious for big fish and my thought process was to get him a big fish before he left to go back to the UK

I found this great stretch of water that had produced well for me in the past. It was a turbulent, bouldery run, just the sort of place that a big fish would hold up.

We both started fishing close to each other and I soon caught a nice rainbow of around 4lb About half an hour laterIwashardintoanotherfish,thistimeaveryattractive brownie which went about 5 pounds I thought at this stage I would have to change positions with my English colleague as the fish seemed to be hanging around my area. We changed positions and I showed him exactly where to cast and I went into his previous position and casted. Immediately I was hooked up right where he was and this fish was big, very big

As it was impossible to follow the fish downstream (the terrain wouldn’t allow it), I had to ask my fellow fisher to abandon his fishing and take up a position downstream with a landing net and hopefully I could steer the fish into him.

Fortunatelyeverythingwenttoplanandthefishbehaved itself While the Englishman was a bit disappointed that he didn’t hook the fish he was more than happy to be part of the experience He had simply never seen a a fish of that size Ironically I was to hook up again in the same place again on the very next cast.

It wasn ’ t to be the Englishman’s day on this river but he was to have some good action on the mightyTongariro River the following day

roughout the winter the Taupo rivers have all fished very well with no clear favourites although some weeks some have fished better than others.

I had a group of 3 Australians at the tail end of the winter runs in the Tongariro River in September for 3 days ey were all surgeons and quite accomplished fly fishermen OnthefirstdayIestimated40fishwerehooked and all in the same reach

I was netting another fish at the time and had to cease my services to pull this man out. As he was around 20 stone this was no easy task but it’s amazing what you can achieve when, quite simply, you have to What made matters worse was that it was a bitterly cold day with fresh snow on the surrounding hills. We were experiencing a cold polar blast straight up from Antartica that was to hand around for the 3 days they were fishing but this was notanissueasthefishingthroughoutthe4dayswassuperb.

I had another group of 3 Australians in May that also had great success both in the Taupo area and in the wilderness rivers close by with some big fish caught As a bonus I took them all out to a small stream mouth one night to try and catch some good fish and maybe some browns (always a possibility at this time of year and on a dark night).

As this was a bonus trip I elected to fish with them e fishing was not fast and furious and even though it was heavily overcast there was a full moon present behind the clouds and the night was not as dark as I would have liked. A few fish were caught however and I managed to cap it off by catching a superb 8lb brown.

SoifyouarelookingtocomeovertoNZforthesummer I predict more of the same with excellent condition fish and good numbers All fishing methods have their place and will excellent at different times

If you want to experience the Central North Island fishing experience, feel free to contact me, Brian Willson, Professional fishing guide, NZPFGA member, +64 21 667867 anytime. Cheers and tight lines,