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Story and Photography By Peter McMullan
All those years ago it was a fly fishing classic, a book to treasure for its vivid and very personal memories of a still legendary fishery, one that continues to attract its devotees from all over the world. Re-reading it as essential homework for a four-week journey to a country where the quality of the trout fishing is still beyond compare, was all that was required to raise long-held expectations to boiling point. Throughout its 239 pages, Mr. Hintz’s emphasis is on the incomparable sport he enjoyed to the downstream wet fly on the major rivers that flow into Lake Taupo and, in particular, on the beautiful, spring-fed Waitahanui. He also spent many productive years on the estuary streams at the point where rivers and lakes merge to form what could well be the world’s most productive brown and rainbow trout fishery. In his time the rainbows averaged 5 lbs with a daily limit of 10. Now the average seems to be between 3 and 4 lbs and the limit is down to a more reasonable three. There is also an ample stock of fish that go to twice and three times that weight and considerably larger from time to time. It all takes some believing for, to this day, the lake and its rivers produce an annual rod catch in excess of 300 and perhaps close to 400 tons of trout. Just now, as the Southern Hemisphere summer gives way to autumn, the fishing effort is concentrated on the lake, where streamer flies and lures are trolled deep behind slow-moving boats of all sizes for an annual catch in the region of 70,000 trout. Elsewhere, locals and visitors gather each dawn and dusk at the river mouths, the famous New Zealand rips, in the expectation of a very special fly-fishing moment. Later, in April and May and on into winter, the mature browns and rainbows, averaging over 5 lbs, move out of the lake on their annual spawning pilgrimage. Many see this as the real essence of the truly tremendous Taupo experience, one that provides the fisherman with an opportunity to challenge really big fish on fly-only streams, clear as Irish crystal and flowing with a vigour certain to test both angler and tackle to its furthest limit.
While the locals tend to rely on the upstream nymph, often fished below an indicator, and downstream attractor patterns for both resident and migratory fish, the dry fly clearly has its place on what can be likened to a super-charged English chalk stream, one where the strength of the current is such that a wading stick, the New Zealander’s ‘third leg’, is an asset if not an essential. A five-day visit was only enough to whet the appetite, to leave me with a determination to return to see what it’s like to fish such famed rivers as the Tongariro and the Taurango-Taupo when the autumn and winter runs are at their peak. Not that I have any possible reason to complain. In fact I could never have imagined what was ahead as I took my place in the so-called ‘picket fence’ on the shore close to where the Waitahanui enters Lake Taupo. Our dinner, bed and breakfast base was five minutes’ drive away and, even with 20 or more other rods on duty, there was never any sense of overcrowding. On that first morning, with all the traditional emphasis on the still dark minutes between 5 am, the legal starting hour, and early light just after 6 am, we could both hear and sense big trout plunging at close quarters, sometimes almost at our feet. My fly was a Taupo traditional, the Red Setter, and it eventually fooled one rather lean rainbow of around 2.5 lbs that was quickly released. But each time the single fly, fished on a 9’, 9 lb leader, swung round in the deep current,which draws away from the river mouth for some considerable distance, there was the expectation of contact with something of real substance.
Later a chance lakeside encounter with local fishing host and artist Graham Moeller – the title ‘fishing guide’ does not begin to describe what this most genial companion brings to his vocation – prompted a change to a luminous pattern, the Moonglow. This one fly went on to account for a dozen trout in all including three notable browns of between 9.25 and 8 lbs, the two largest coming in less than a dozen casts between 5 and 5.30 am on Saturday, February 17. The word spread fast and, on the day we left Taupo for South Island waters, George Blake and Tom Ruru, at Waioranga Sports and Tours, noted they had sold out of that particular pattern. I have waited for the better part of 50 years for my first chance at a brown trout worthy of its place on the wall. To take two such trophies at one all too short session makes this a day of days, one that perhaps owed something to earlier decision to add a 15’ intermediate tip to my floating line. Whatever the explanation, and I can make no possible claim as to expertise in terms of Taupo trout, I accept that this was an outcome I can never, ever reasonably expect to repeat – at least not unless I return to the mouth of the Waitahanui. Thank you New Zealand for this lifetime highlight.
The size limit for trout on most Taupo waters is 45cms A weekly adult’s licence costs $26NZ Approximately 70,000 licences of all classes are issued each year Trout caught trolling on the lake totalled 61,942 (97-98); 55,403 (96-97) and 76,442 (95-96) Taupo remains a totally wild trout habitat with no hatchery augmentation John Reid, New Zealand’s finest cricketer and long-time Test captain, and his wife Norli run an outstanding dinner, bed and breakfast operation close to the lake at 57 Mahuta Road, 5 Mile Bay, Taupo, New Zealand (tel. 07 377 0859) Their neighbour, Jean Hughes (tel. 07 378 0563) offers equally welcoming bed and breakfast facilities at 60 Mahuta Road, 5 Mile Bay, Taupo, New Zealand. Both can also be contacted through New Zealand Farm Holidays, owned by Stewart and Gail King (email: farm@nzaccom.co.nz) George Blake and Tom Ruru provide all sorts of relevant fishing advice and equipment from Waironga Sports and Tours, 147 Tongariro Street, Taupo (tel. and fax 07 378 3714) Taupo’s origins are volcanic with a stupendous eruption some 25,000 years ago creating a lake that extends over 606 sq km. Ancient volcanoes dominate the skyline and steam still rises from the ground and, in places, heats the sand just inches below the surface of the water. |
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Lake Taupo, North Island, New Zealand, late winter. . . 
The inscription on the book’s fly leaf reads: "If you can’t fight em…." Little did I, or my wife Daphne, who wrote that note, ever imagine that 37 years later we would be fishing in the very boot prints of the late O.S. ‘Budge’ Hintz, former editor of the New Zealand Herald and author of Trout at Taupo ( Max Reinhardt, 1955) and its 1975 sequel, Fisherman’s Paradise.
The Waitahanui, beloved of Mr. Hintz, is a case in point. A sunlit afternoon’s effort with small dry flies, fished both blind and to the occasional riser, brought me half a dozen released rainbows, each one a picture perfect wild example of the species, direct descendants of the original Taupo stocking from California’s Russian River more than a century ago. The largest of the six, at a good 2.5lbs, ran and jumped with the energy of a fresh-run Atlantic salmon before slipping away safely into the shadows of a deep pool beneath the high and lush bankside foliage.
Field Notes:
