KEY POINTS:
New Zealand is brown trout heaven, especially for overseas anglers who holiday here at this time to try and fulfill their dream of landing a trophy fish - which is 4.5kg (10lb) and up.
Their chances are high, for in the central North Island fishery the spawning season for browns is well under way in the rivers, and in the lakes they are cruising and feeding along the shoreline weed beds within reach of shore-based flyfishers.
Trophy browns have been tantalising anglers in the lower Tongariro River. The fish have spent months building up condition for their spawning runs and many have been spotted cruising the river shallows, especially at dawn, before unwary anglers spook them and they drift off quietly under the protection of overhanging willows where they remain always just out of casting range. They simply lie there for hours, swinging their tails gently in the current, while anglers point and drool.
The careful, stalking angler will sometimes tempt these hard-to-catch fish; in the daytime with a large cicada pattern or with tiny yellow willow grubs or caddis nymphs, or at night with large black night flies on the Hydro Pool.
At this time of year, the browns also hang out at night at the Taupo stream mouths where they can be targeted with a Scotch Poacher, a black or green Woolly Bugger, a Craig's Night-time or a Green Marabou. The Omori, Kuratau, Waimarino, Whareroa and Waipehi mouths are top spots for big browns and Waipehi has been fishing particularly well lately.
These Taupo browns are big fish, but they're not as big as the ones making people gasp in disbelief over in the streams feeding Lake Rotorua.
"I'm not a fisherman," said a friend this week, "but I took a walk along the Ngongotaha Stream the other afternoon and I saw this trout ... honestly, I would never have believed a trout could grow so big!"
So how big was that? Probably about the size of a brown caught on a hare-and-copper nymph just along the road at the Waiteti Stream mouth by a 15-year-old local lad. That one was near 8kg (17.5lb). He hooked it in shallow water at 10 o'clock in the morning and landed it in on a sandbar out in the lake half an hour later.
Some anglers target these fish on the upper Ngongotaha and Waiteti streams by rigging a heavy rod (size 9) with a short fluorocarbon trace up to 9kg and one big, hairy, hare-and-copper nymph cast into the likely trout lies.
Even with such a heavy rig, a hooked fish often escapes. Nothing will stop a brown bulldozer determined to crash through log-jams and into deep willow-root-infested holes, where it will lie safely while the angler strains on a snagged line and curses, and later bores his family umpteen times with his tale of the one that got away.
Further along the Lake Rotorua coast, the Awahou and Hamurana stream mouths are good spots for big browns, day or night. I saw a visiting angler this week land a 4.5kg brown hooked 10m from the shore at Hamurana on a green Woolly Bugger at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
My favourite spot at Hamurana is along the willows beside the stream mouth, where browns can be seen coming out from under the willows in the evening to feed in the shallows. The place is thick with fat, dark cockabullies, so go for a Mrs Simpson, a Lord's Killer or Kilwell No 1.
As well as the Taupo and Rotorua fisheries, hunters of trophy browns should try Lake Otomangakau, west of Turangi, where damsel nymphs and cicadas are the flies of choice; Flaxy Lake on the upper Rangitaiki River, where trophy browns will rise to dry flies and large terrestrials; Lake Aniwhenua, where small, sparsely-tied black nymphs, bloodworms or damsel nymphs will do the damage in the mornings and Woolly Buggers in the evenings.
Further south, near Lake Waikaremoana, little-known Lake Whakamarino is earning a reputation as a fine trophy fishery, trout up to 12.5kg (27lb) having been caught there. After dark is the best time, when shoreline casting or fishing over the weed-beds from an anchored dinghy (no motors allowed) is popular.
