Damsels & mountains

Day one and the fish were behaving like little bastards. Big bastards actually. Tim had jumped off the boat and headed towards Greig. I'd asked Pesty if he minded me tagging along to learn from him. Heck, I even hassled him for flies and he'd handed me 3 of his beautifully crafted damsel nymphs. Our shore had a wee current flowing, the lake is part f the central north Island hydro scheme so more or less constantly, water is shipping.  In front of us, brownies worked. And so did we, focusing hard for the next few hours. I'd mimicked Karl's (Pesty) rig and tied on  double of his lovely damsels. I'd cast out into a wide bowl that had a couple cm's more depth and left he flies on the bottom. A cruising brown sucked in one of the flies and I broke him on the strike losing both flies... and that was he sum total of fish for morning. Karl landed a nice 'bow, but we agreed that it had been hard going. With Tim and Greig teamed up we were free to explore.

A riffle on the lake spoke to nymphing the weed beds under an indicator - "plonking" as its known around here. Karl had a pre-rigged rod at the ready. I rigged up a "plonking" outfit and tied on the garish snail imitation that Karl gave me - he assured me that with the thin veil of cloud overhead, the fish would pick up the snail fast. My first fish took 5 minutes to hook. The indicator slid under. Fish on. Our drift as relatively productive, culminating in an absurdly ft 6lb fish for me, and a stunning 9lb hen for Karl. The boy can play.

We pulled  few more 'bows over the next hour or so.

We stalked he edges in the afternoon but neither of us could get an eat. A catch up with Tim and Greig (the lake-master) on the lake edge. They'd struggled. Greig had taken a brown early, but that was it. Rob cruised over and joined us. He's another fish magnet. He'd nailed a good number of fish.

We decided to draw a line under the day and head back to base.

That evening's proposed trip to the Tongariro delta saw us all (me, Rob, Karl, Tim & Greig) in Karl's boat Full Mongrel, heading out. The SW wind blew an ugly chop and we all agreed to abandon the mission in favour of safety, returning to land dripping wet. Rather we fished the evening rise on the Tongariro.

Sunday dawned fine and still. We'd convoyed again, Rob towing his boat, and Karl dragging Full Mongrel. Greig was already on he water. We dropped Tim off with Greig. Pest and I decided to strip damsels over the weed beds, having sen a number of large fish in a spot as we arrived. On shore, Greig hooked and battled a large brownie; from the bow of the boat I had a stadium view of the fish which took him well into the backing. Finally he had it under control, only for the hook to pull when finally he had it in netting range.

The lake was eerily calm. Karl motored us to a quiet shoreline, and here we struck gold. First Karl took  fat brown that ate with flyline well inside the rod tip. With his fish netted, a golden bown approached and I managed an eat. This fish was as fat as a labrador with donuts. A little later and further along the shoreline,  I presented the fly multiple times to  fish hat refused to take. When he finally did, the slabby old jack rolled around on the surface before coming to the net. With a an abscessed eye, the reason for not taking was revealed... he simply couldn't see the fly.

The afternoon rolled and we called it at about mid afternoon. With 2 wonderful days of damsels and mountains behind us and the first of the summer weather, life felt pretty good.