[Tad inconvenient that I'm having to apply for my job again, just like last year. I've spent time brushing up my CV, checking Seek and updating Linked In, talking to employment agencies and counsellors. Fortunately, while RF & I were fishing at Taupo, I wrote notes on each of the fish we caught, so despite the passing of time, not all is lost!]
The Cheeky Shakedown
The average contestant at a fishing comp rocks up with not much recent history of the local water and how it's fishing. The comp was on Saturday/Sunday 21st and 22nd March, and the pre-comp meeting was on Friday evening. We decided that since we needed to be in Taupo Friday, we'd check the lie of the land and see if we could find a spot bursting with XOS trout on Friday afternoon.
We left Auckland at 6am and made good time towing RF's Fish City 3.9m dinghy. I suggested we fend off the hunger pangs and wait til we got to the Wooden Farmer cafe in Putaruru for breakfast. Wadyaknow they weren't open, so it was cheap and cheerful other side of the road and up a bit. Don't listen to me next time RF!
What with a brekkie stop, check into our Turangi digs, compulsory visit to Greigs Sports for a TAS attack, minor repair to RF's trailer, lunch etc etc, it was about 2pm when we cast our first flies at the Delta. We had it all to ourselves!!!! We anchored the boat in the main channel about 10m back from the lip of the drop-off, and took turns casting. "Keep your head and your rod tip down" while the other bloke was casting was the rule, and given the fairly blustery onshore conditions we coped well. No hats whipped off, no fly embedded in the ear - marvelous.
Once we got the rig sorted and the positioning of the cast good, we started getting bites. We started with white boobies as the first fly, with heave and leave UV bugs as the dropper. Rf changed to a big bug as the first fly, and same heave & leave dropper and got more bites. Not wanting to be left out of the party I shamelessly copied. Some purists will deplore even one bug used while trout fishing, but we had 4 going at once. Purity does not equal enjoyment unless your a purer type than RF and I, so we defied convention and had fun.
We had lots of touches and a few short term hookups that came unstuck quickly. Trout don't seem quite as suicidal as snapper - they play with their food like naughty children. Despite "Yes, no, buggas!" heard renting the air, a few stuck and after a couple of hours we had released 6 legal trout and an RF special about 15cms long. The fish were in medium condition and none would have gone much past 1 Kg This wasn't the goldmine we needed to win the comp, so we panned elsewhere, dropping jig flies down near the Tokaanu hole for a while until we needed to make tracks for the sign-in in Taupo. The hole was empty, so also eliminated from the fishing prospects for the morrow.
The sign-in was enjoyable. The clubrooms are great with some good fishing photos, other decorations (trophy trout, rods, reels etc), a friendly atmosphere, a well driven BBQ banger delivery system, a well stocked bar, lots of prizes, and reasonably short speeches! Even so, we sneeked off early to drive back to Turangi and check the gear in readiness for the comp.