Fishing Lake Taupo - Casting tips

 

Taupo was the place where I grew my guiding business, taking anglers into the Kaimanawa and Urewera Ranges by helicopter to camp out in the wilds of New Zealand and catch some trophy trout. I also took them around the lake – by car, floatplane and helicopter – to Western Bays to camp on the beach at small stream mouths where big brown trout visited at night.

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Taupo was also my base when fishing the western areas of Lakes Otamangakau, Rotoaira and Kuratau, as well as the rivers of the King Country. To the north were Rotorua and the trophy trout lakes of Tarawera, Okataina and Rotoiti.

I roamed far and wide. Out east were the rivers of Kaiangaroa Forest: the Rangitaiki and the Otamatea, the Wheao and Flaxy Lake. In the native forest bordering the Napier-Taupo road was the Waipunga River and its tributaries. Further on flowed the Mohaka and its wonderful tributaries.
It took countless hours, dollars and years to come to grips with all this and package it into a form that suited my main clients at that time, who were Americans. They were on their ‘Trip of a Lifetime’ so I wanted everything to be as good as possible for them.

While we spent summers in the bush, the winters were spent on the rivers of Taupo – the Tongariro, Tauranga-Taupo, Hinemaiaia and the Waitahanui. This was bread-and-butter guiding. The fish were big – you could expect a 2.5kg fish most days – and there were plenty of them. I knew that some days would always be better than others, but never knew when those were going to be. Often the most unlikely anglers struck the best days, while the travelling experts had difficult sessions.

taupo trout

Some great successes included a day at Lake Otamangakau with client Will Pharr from Georgia, USA. It was raining and the first two days of his trip were spent on the Tongariro River, where he had experienced some good fishing the previous winter. This was high summer though, and fish were few in the river – plenty of tiddlers to keep it interesting, but only a couple of 1.5kg trout to bend his rod.

I suggested moving up to ‘Lake O’; every year the trout gathered in the deep holes off the outlet canal’s entrance – but it was only possible to wade out to them when the lake was at its lowest. Fortunately, the water level had been dropped for maintenance work to be done, so I explained to Will that this could be a great opportunity.

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We loaded up with lunch, drinks and tackle, and waded out. It took us an hour to reach the right spot, and there were no indications of what we were in for, other than a couple of fish rising when we arrived.

I rigged Will’s rod with a damsel fly nymph on a 10-pound leader. He thought that was a bit heavy, but I knew what was possible.

We stood knee-deep in mud and water, cast into water that was probably only one to two metres deep, and although it never stopped raining, we caught fish all day. It was the best trout fishing day of Will’s life and my best guiding day. I even caught a few fish myself.

It was long enough ago now to have forgotten the details, but there is a photo in my book Gary Kemsley’s Taupo Fishing Guide of Will with a 5kg rainbow. Anything under 3kg was hardly mentioned, and Will ended the day with at least three fish over 5kg and others over 4.5kg. I do remember arriving back at the car wet, covered in mud, and overjoyed at the day’s fishing.

Back on Lake Taupo the fishing was consistently good. There was good smelting around most of the lake, starting any time after Labour Weekend. River mouths fished well all summer, and some of the recruiting areas where trout tend to gather prior to running the rivers fished amazingly well for us shore anglers.

When the first cold weather came before Easter weekend, the trout made their run up the rivers. This was a great annual event, and while many thought that they just ran, spawned and then went back to the lake, we found there was a lot more to know about different rivers and their trout.

An experience on the Tongariro River opened my eyes. I had developed a new fly pattern – a nymph unlike any other. I was testing it during a run of good-sized fish with a Japanese fly-tying angler, who was intrigued by the pattern. He landed two fish with it, then hooked a lively rainbow of good size in the tail of the (old) Whitikau Pool. The fish bolted for the Sand Pool 150m further down and managed to break the leader on the way.

Two weeks later I was back on the river with an American doctor. We started fishing in the Boulder Pool and planned to fish up to the Whitikau during the day. We crossed at the tail and had the place to ourselves. Fish came easily for him, and he was thrilled with the 2kg-size rainbows. He then hooked a bigger fish – heavy, stubborn and staying deep, I knew this was a big one.

Fifteen minutes later he eased his prize ashore: a beautiful gleaming rainbow jack close to 4kg and a wonderful fish from the Tongariro. In the tip of its snout was a fly – not the one he caught it on, but rather my prototype nymph that has been broken off in the Whitikau. That was a kilometre upstream of where he was recaptured. This didn’t add up for me. Why would this fish keep dropping back? A prime running fish, I’d thought it would have bolted upstream after the first encounter.

Later tagging programmes have proven that trout will move all around the river after they have come in from the lake. Some have gone back to the lake and run again. Take nothing for granted.
Twenty years of fishing Taupo’s rivers taught me that all rivers are not equal. If your target is big fish, then put your time in on the Waitahanui and the Hinemaiaia Rivers; if chasing good numbers, then the Tongariro and Tauranga-Taupo are the best bets.

On the lake there are certain spots where the fish gather prior to spawning. These are well removed from any river mouths but can offer some great catches. I have noticed this with other lakes, too. I will give you one for Taupo, but there are several others worth hunting out. The hardest thing is to drag yourself away from the rivers and their mouths.

Any time from March onwards, try fishing the Taupo side of Wharewaka Point. There is a good drop-off there that you can easily cover from shore. I fish it with a fast-sinking line or shooting head and a Booby fly or Red Setter – or both. When the trout are gathered here, some big catches can be made. You may be surprised: the trout are usually deep and subtle, and you wouldn’t know they are there until you catch one.

This spot fishes well at night too, although freshwater crayfish can be a nuisance, grabbing your fly as you retrieve it up the drop-off. Try lumo flies and big green marabous here – they work for me.

Taupo has many ‘other sides’ to its stories, like the dry fly fishing in the rivers, which can be world class. The waters are not crowded though, as only modest numbers of anglers take advantage.
The deep water boat fishing has changed from lead-line trolling to jigging. The catches are good and it’s a lot more fun thanks to the lighter tackle used today. Harling in the early morning and evening still works; in fact, as the smelt are recovering in the lake, this technique’s getting even more productive.

Taupo has been through a bit of a grey patch for a few years, but is now coming into its own again. The fish are getting bigger on average, the smelt are coming back in good numbers.
So if you gave up on Taupo, perhaps it’s time for another look, as this world-class fishery looks well on the way to returning to its former glory.

 

 

   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

2014 - by Gary Kemsley
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

 

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