NZ North Island

[cole_p]

Has anyone fished the north island in early Jan?

I’m going to fish the most famous river. After scouring Google Maps I have a short list of other options but would love some tips if anyone is willing to share.

Tips don’t have to be locations, open to any info.

PM me please.

Also if this is considered a serious faux pas I’m happy to remove this post. I only have a few days to fish while I’m down there and would like to make the most of them.

 

[jaredoconnor]

You might like to ask on the FlyLife forum, if it's still active.

 

[albula]

Been to the north island fishing about 15 times over the years and know a bit about it. Are you looking for guide recommendations, lodge options or planning to DYI?

 

[JayB]

Sounds like you'll be in the Taupo area, then?

 

[cole_p]

We have our lodging set up thru various airbnbs and motels. Just looking to DIY a few days on the water and not go where every other yank is being sent

 

[JayB]

I lived in the Taupo area for a few months back in 2008, and aside from the mouth of Waitahanui, and the famous pools on the Tongariro - I didn't find it particularly hard to get away from the crowds. In fact, most of the time I was happy to run into other anglers because it was fun to visit with them and a great way to get more intel on the area. The rare times that I left the Taupo area to fish I found the angling pressure to be quite light. Mind you, I was mostly fishing week-days, and was off in the South Island during the absolute peak of the December holiday season, but at least back then getting away from the crowds was rarely a problem.

In fact, the fish in my profile pic was caught on the Tongariro not all that far from some of the famous pools. I basically had a very nice stretch of the river all to myself for several hours during the late summer, and got to watch a conga-line of trout in the 5lb+ range reject every dry in my box while they gorged on a steady-stream of lacewings, until my wife said "Maybe you should try the mouse fly...."

If you want to explore on your own, getting your hands on a copy of "Volcanic Trout" by Brendon Mathews is a good place to start. That book alone provided me with way more places than I could possibly have investigated during my time there, and as I said above I almost never left the Lake Taupo zone to fish because there really wasn't much upside to doing so from a fishing perspective.

The going rate for a guide was $500-600 per day when I was there, and I had time to learn the ropes on my own so I didn't really even consider coughing up the money for a guide, but if was heading there for a short trip I'd definitely pay a guide for one day at the start of the trip to get oriented and perhaps score a bit of bonus intel and then head off on my own from there. I'm not sure if he's still around, but there was an American physician that I met while I was there that booked a few days with a Taupo-area guide named Andrew Christmas and had very good things to say about him. I also generally found the folks at the local fly shop in Taupo to be quite helpful and friendly when I stopped in to buy something, which was fairly often.

The last thing I'll say is hopefully at least part of your stay overlaps with the cicada hatch. I was there for the full cicada-cycle and all I can say is that I was sad when it was over.

 

[JayB]

I rarely fished the lake-shore when I was there, mostly because I got a couple of the rivers fairly dialed in, so I was one of many people who under-utilized the shore fishing opportunities. Mathews has a good section on this aspect of the local fishing in his book, and it looks like there's a dedicated book on the topic available now.

Love the passage from the blurb on the back. "Possibly the most underrated shoreline sport fishery in New Zealand, Taupo's immense shore circumference is routinely ignored by tourist and local alike, much to their loss. Nymph, lure, or dry fly, the magic never stops once you begin exploring the bays, inlets, stream mouths, and rocky points of this vast volcanic crater."

Amazon product ASIN 1677287519
Worth noting that there's a local water-taxi service that offers pick-up and drop-off service at various beaches around the lake, including at some of the more remote bays....

 

[JayB]

-I got so sentimental remembering my days in the Taupo area that I ordered a copy of the shore-fishing book even though I'm likely years away from being able to pull off a visit. LOL.

-Final thought. Not sure if it's the case any more, but I never saw anyone fishing with a two handed rod when I was there, and as far as I could tell no one had even conceived of doing so. Looking back, I can think of more than a few bits of incredibly fishy looking water that rarely got pressure - even during the height of the cicada hatch when large fish were clearly visible feeding - simply because they were out of range even with the most heroic wading/casting or (more rarely) the amount of brush made it nearly impossible to get a fly in range. I manage to make it back there I'll definitely bringing an appropriate two hander along.

 

[Brute]

I lived in the Taupo area for a few months back in 2008, and aside from the mouth of Waitahanui, and the famous pools on the Tongariro - I didn't find it particularly hard to get away from the crowds. In fact, most of the time I was happy to run into other anglers because it was fun to visit with them and a great way to get more intel on the area. The rare times that I left the Taupo area to fish I found the angling pressure to be quite light. Mind you, I was mostly fishing week-days, and was off in the South Island during the absolute peak of the December holiday season, but at least back then getting away from the crowds was rarely a problem.

In fact, the fish in my profile pic was caught on the Tongariro not all that far from some of the famous pools. I basically had a very nice stretch of the river all to myself for several hours during the late summer, and got to watch a conga-line of trout in the 5lb+ range reject every dry in my box while they gorged on a steady-stream of lacewings, until my wife said "Maybe you should try the mouse fly...."

If you want to explore on your own, getting your hands on a copy of "Volcanic Trout" by Brendon Mathews is a good place to start. That book alone provided me with way more places than I could possibly have investigated during my time there, and as I said above I almost never left the Lake Taupo zone to fish because there really wasn't much upside to doing so from a fishing perspective.

The going rate for a guide was $500-600 per day when I was there, and I had time to learn the ropes on my own so I didn't really even consider coughing up the money for a guide, but if was heading there for a short trip I'd definitely pay a guide for one day at the start of the trip to get oriented and perhaps score a bit of bonus intel and then head off on my own from there. I'm not sure if he's still around, but there was an American physician that I met while I was there that booked a few days with a Taupo-area guide named Andrew Christmas and had very good things to say about him. I also generally found the folks at the local fly shop in Taupo to be quite helpful and friendly when I stopped in to buy something, which was fairly often.

The last thing I'll say is hopefully at least part of your stay overlaps with the cicada hatch. I was there for the full cicada-cycle and all I can say is that I was sad when it was over.

Best quote from a spouse…”maybe you should try the mouse fly”…

 

[JayB]

Best quote from a spouse…”maybe you should try the mouse fly"

Certainly beats "I'm bored," "How much longer do you want to fish?," "Is this place supposed to have good fishing?" and other classics from the genre....

 

[Brute]

Certainly beats "I'm bored," "How much longer do you want to fish?," "Is this place supposed to have good fishing?" and other classics from the genre....

I was in northern Patagonia several years ago…I was talking to my guide about an upcoming trip to Alaska and he asked me if I was going to fish a mouse, to which I replied “yes”…his eyes lit up and asked “would you like to fish a mouse now? No one here fishes a mouse, and I tied a few up”…I said “sure”…my wife was in the back of the raft and filming video of random things, including a nearby kingfisher…she filmed the kingfisher crashing my mouse and flying away with it…

 

[cole_p]

@JayB Thanks very much for taking the time to share your experiences. I just grabbed the last "Volcanic Trout" copy available on Amazon. $50 I'll never see again but sure beats the $650-775 a guide would cost. Maybe I was asking the wrong guides.

 

[JayB]

Hope you guys have an awesome trip! It's been a while but here's a random list of other things that I remember being worthwhile or I'd recommend in no particular order:

-Soaking at DeBrett's hot springs.
-Gelato place in downtown Taupo.
-Stopping by for a look at Huka Falls. Never took the jet-boat tour to the base but that had generally good reviews.
-Swimming in the Waikato at the Cherry Island car park. Had fun trout-spotting with goggles.
-Early AM or Sunset hike up Mt. Tuahara for the view over the lake.
-Rafting the upper-gorge of the Tongariro. Spectacular gorge, gin-clear water, ~70 class 2-3 rapids in about 7 miles, and the only place you're likely to encounter eddies full of floating rocks.
-Sausage rolls at the Bakery in Turangi either before or after hitting the Tongariro.
-Craters of the Moon geothermal park.
-Local mountain biking. Can't recall the location (it's fairly close) but there was a good rental shop in town with good recommendations.
-Western Bays with hike-in/boat-in only access.
-Cold-smoking your catch at a local butcher shop and pairing it with local fruit and a South Island Sauvignon Blanc (when I was there they were encouraging people to retain their catch to improve the size/condition of the fish. Commercial fishing for trout was/is prohibited, but people brought in enough fish that local restaurants would cook your trout for you as part of a meal, or the butcher shop would smoke it for you.)
-Rafting the Okere falls stretch of the Kaituna river. Short but sweet. If someone turned the Disney Jungle Cruise into a WW river, this'd be it - bathtub warm water, ridiculously lush primeval looking vegetation by the river, and legit whitewater, including the highest commercially run waterfall in the world).
-Dinner in Kinloch and strolling around the marina/beach afterwards.
-Various hikes in Kaimanawa Forest Park.
-Tongariro National Trout Centre
-Whakapapa Village on Mt. Ruapehu
-"Maori Place Names": Small, inexpensive book that provided a lot of interesting context to the landscape that we were driving through.

 

[cole_p]

Once again above and beyond. Thanks man!