Winter Fly Fishing - Tongariro River and the Central Plateau

We are just over 2 weeks into winter now and to be fair it has been a peculiar one weather wise through my home town of Turangi. There has been some of the coldest days I can remember with big frosts followed by days that feel like Spring before reverting back to the brisk, biting, cold air days like we are having now as I write this.

The one thing that continues to allude us through these weather patterns is a solid, multi day rainfall. The Tongariro has sat at around 21 - 22 cumecs of flow for most of the past month, quite a way down on the around 30 cumec average of the last several winters. Personally I like fishing her at any level and I do, but she is well overdue a big flow.

The fishing has slowed a tad in the last couple of days but the winter kicked off with a bang with big, strong rainbows running the gauntlet of flies up stream.

I've played around with a lot of different fly fishing techniques over the last few weeks and have got to spend time on the water with a lot of different people, beginners and pros and it has been a good sharp learning process for me.

Trout Spey and Single Hand Spey has become very popular across New Zealand, there is not a day where i don't see at least 1 or 2 anglers firing their Skagit Heads to the far bank, waiting for the tug on their swinging fly. It's fantastic to see.

We stock a huge range of Trout Spey Gear which you can have a nosey through on our online shop at www.flytacklenz.com and feel free to message me at andrew@flytackle.co.nz if you have any queries on Spey Gear or Fly Fishing in General.

One of the things I am looking forward to a lot over winter is a new project for the Flytackle NZ family and that is casting club, something myself and Simon Pengelly have been talking about for a bit and we are now going to action, have a watch of the following video to give you an idea of what I am talking about, no cost involved, just somewhere to work on your casting with like minded folh who want to do the same.

 Andrew