Boy's trip report

Well I got to Hinehopu at about lunch time on Friday. Strolled down to the pipe where Milo was sitting and had a quick catchup before unloading the gear. The wind was strengthening from steady to stiff and coming onshore at the pipe... so we said hi to Pete the Coro farmer who roves the district at this time of year, and set off for Ruato which seemed the only sheltered spot. We set up with arm chairs around the stream mouth and watched, waited and cast.

Milo at Ruato

Some fish moved close in, which gave us confidence. The boys arrived after dark at about 6, and we fished for a while fruitlessly. Milo, Bri and Al then went around to the hut to get the late arrivals settled in, while me and Andre kept up the vigil. The good news is that the wind wasn't directly from the south.. the bad news was that my waders had a leak... but we weren't wading so no big drama. The boys arrived back and we fished without so much as a touch. Then anglers began to wade out. This spells death to the fishing as the fish move out because of the disturbance and is just plain rude behaviour. So we packed up and headed back... 6 hours for me, no bites... Milo and me got up early on Saturday and claimed our spots near the pipe. Me, Milo & Pete. We fished from 5 to 9 with no bites....  running total 10 hours, no bites. Milo saw 2 fish move. We did witness an amazing sight though, some piece of space junk hit the atmosphere in the west and tore across the sky spraying burning debris... the sky lit up in a green display easily as light as daylight. Fantastic, probably scared the fish though!!! Andre wandered down with some bacon sandwiches for our brekkie. We returned to the hut, the weather getting worse by the minute. We all sat around and decided on a game plan. Bri, Al & Andrew headed off to Tarawera, while Milo and me decided on Okataina. It was a damn sight calmer than we expected, but now the ran was falling steadily. We set up glo bug rigs on shooting heads and waded out to fire our longest casts out... then 45 minutes later Pete arrived and ambled down. He then fired his longest casts out... lets just say that his longest casts made our longest casts look pretty amateur by comparison. It was actually quite a lovely morning, beautiful lake scene, rain, bush bird noises, not many tourists. I got my longest cast of the day out - I knew this because the whole integrated line was outside the tip by the time I has waded back to the deck chair. And then...n ibble nibble... after 3 hours of casting... but i seemed to have missed the fish. I quickly retrieved to get tight to the fly and the rod bucked - fish on! We were both glad to hook and land a fish, but this fellah would've been lucky to be more than 2lb, even though it was fat as a horse. We fished until 1.30 then headed back for a nana nap - no sign of the other lads. They turned up at 4, having fished Kaituna exit, The Orchard at Tarawera and a bit of Okataina. We sat around and had a feed, gave the change of light a miss, then headed off. We didn't fancy a long drive so it was back to Okataina. We lined up along the beach and then Milo gave us a lesson in fishing... I didn't even hear a splash all night, and while me, Andre, Bri & All caught zilch , Milo took 3 nice fish from 4lb to about 6lb. We were quite chuffed to have scored fish. We got back and watched the rugby until about 2am, then I packed my stuff and got ready for an early trip home. I slept in! Said bye to Brian, drove down to the pipe where Milo and Pete were putting in the hours. Wished them luck and drove home.

Milo later got another 2 at Okataina during daylight hours... looks like the place to be!

A good lad's weekend. Roll on next time.