Like riding a bicycle

This time of the year everything warms up a bit around here. And with the warmth the bugs really start to get their boogie on. Drive anywhere around the countryside in the evening and your car will be peppered with bugs and this nocturnal activity gives a hungry trout a ton of protein that he might have missed over the cooler months. This translates to daytime too. Jase and I were hoping to be able to cash in on a feeding frenzy visit to a lake, but during the week the forecast was for overcast conditions so I knew it wouldn't fire on all cylinders. But we have to fish when we can, not when we want to, so plans were laid accordingly.

Having launched we set off under greyish white low hanging cloud. We deployed the Minn Kota and began to sneak between weed beds. The spotting was difficult, any wind at all would have made the glare impossible to see through. But we persevered and Jase racked up the first fish soon after. The trolling motor soon became useless when the remote control battery gave up the ghost, which left us in a predicament of having to move around using the outboard. With everything stacked against us we still did ok. I hadn't picked up a single hand rod since maybe January but my casting was still fine - its like riding a bicycle, even if you haven't done it for awhile you can still do it, maybe not perfectly but you get in the groove.

Glare on the water, not a bluebird day at all

Brownie

We'd also packed a bunch of 'meat pies' as Jase calls them - big streamers such as Galloup's Sex Dungeon as we'd decided to drive up the feeder river and drift down casting the big stuff into the overgrown banks. Jase was first up and put in some beautiful casts working the big fly behind logs and under overhanging willows. After our experience on the Rangitaiki earlier in the year, we'd expected to arouse the interest of plenty of fish but we simply weren't moving them.

We decided to swap places and I tied on a big old olive SD. First cast and a good sized brown moved at the fly but didn't hit. My heart boomed in my chest - that fish was one tail beat from eating!! The drift continued and in a big back water I put in a decent shot to the bank and a fish hit - on the jump it revealed itself as a 'bow, not the old brownie I'd expected. The fly was a big mouthful for the medium sized 'bow - its amazing how fish will hit those streamers.

We didn't manage anything else on the streamers despite hundreds of casts so decided to head back down to the flats for another drift. Jase fooled another couple of browns, watching the cat and mouse of a fish stalking a small damsel nymph from an elevated possie is ultra cool stuff.

Scenery was outstanding

We'll be back on sunny blue sky day, when those damsels get going ad the fish are in full munch mode.

Top 10 things I learned this year about swinging flies for trout with the Spey rod

1. Trout, even those bright chrome fresh into the Tongariro river fish from Lake Taupo, WILL move up in the water column to smash a fly as long as its fished correctly. At the start of the Autumn/Winter season, I was heaving up to 12' of T-14 with weighted flies to 'get down' to the fish. Through a process of losing a shitwhack of flies, not being able to swing tail outs properly and watching and listening to better anglers than I, I came around to using T-10 and T-8 tips. I snagged less and caught more fish because I was ... wait for it... fishing more! Some fish were definitely hitting the fly in less than 2 feet of water. Go figure. All those grandad aged books that said "to catch Taupo fish you have to be on the bottom..." well, they're wrong. (Not 100% wrong, but nowhere near 100% right either).

2. Small flies on the whole out fish larger flies. The key is to get a balance of size and weight in the fly. At the start of the season I was swinging 4" steelhead flies. By the end I was swinging 2" flies with tungsten beads or cones for weight and regularly pulling multiple fish from pools. For context if I was able to get a hit or 2 from a single pool at the start of this journey I was overjoyed. That's not to say I wouldn't be now, its just an observation that by constantly honing in on your gear and making observations (don't be afraid to ask!) you can get much stronger results. The largest fish I took in Argentina ate the smallest fly I fished all week, a #14 curved hook rubber legged nymphy thing fished actively. That possibly was a hint :)

3. Might is not right. Underhand casting requires precision in setting the anchor and timing. Watch videos and practice!

4. Fish out your swing right-to-the-end. It may take a big hit when you start stripping back metres of running line in preparation for the next cast to drive this one home - fish will follow your fly to the end of the swing and pounce - and this can be right at the edge of the river in stuff all water. If you're not fishing the whole swing including some enticing small strips as your line is completely straight below you, then you're never going to know how many fish spooked off or didn't eat your fly as it was dragged away.

5. This isn't a rule so much as an observation... sad, spawned-out kelts and slabs on the whole will not chase a swung fly as vigorously as a healthy or fresh fish. I caught very few slabs compared to comrades who dead drifted nymphs and eggs. Yes I caught spawned fish but nothing like in the spawned:fresh ratio that nymphers did. Mind you I caught a hell of a lot less fish. Leading to...

6. The tug IS the drug. A jarring reel screaming hit on a swung fly is worth 100 fluffy indicator dips. You wont believe me until you find out for yourself.

7. Do different things. Last year when I knew a lot less than the very little I know now and couldn't cast worth a damn I was hitting fish with the worst possible casts that landed slack and got several metres of free drift as I tried to get the whole thing under control - fish will plain and simple hit a dead drifted swung fly. Its not a tooth clattering hit but when it all comes up tight.. well FISH ON!!!

8. Use heavy as leader. One day on the Big T I ran out of 10 & 12lb. The fish ate flies looped on with 20lb no problem at all. Ok so these are passive aggressive spawning fish biting at the fly for god only knows what reason so this probably wont translate to fishing wee wets or small streamers in your local.If you could get mono/fluro that thick through the eye of your hook. At one point in my career I used to use 6lb in the Big T on my nymphing rigs. I got spanked a lot, quite needlessly.

9. Match your heads as well as tips to the water in hand. 40 cumecs flow in the Big T is very different from 25. I found the Airflo F.I.S.T concept excellent in heavy flow but in lighter its just less effective than a full floater. This of course should seem obvious but I for one fall into the trap now and again of 'it worked last time, so it should damn well work this time...". That my friends, doesn't hold for fishing and we all know it!!!

10. Double hand fishing is stupidly addictive.Much to the detriment of my other fly fishing, I've hardly lifted a single hander this year. This will backfire for me of course when I go out for a kingi or snap soon and can't get my shit together.