Waiteti Stream
Hi,
Had a 3 day family holiday with friends in Rotorura, well, Ngongataha actually. Anyway, I had a chance to try out my new 10 foot 5 weight rod. Lots of fun, and I'm happy with how it casts, etc. There has been a couple floods run down the Waiteti stream this past year, and the river mouth into the lake now has a large cresant shaped sandbar that forms a sort of lagoon. I didn't get any photos (sorry), but anyway, there were lots of fish. It's been very hot and sunny this summer, which warms up the lake and brings the fish into the river mouths. However, despite the large number of fish there weren't a whole lot caught and most were smallish (around the 1 kg mark, which for Rotorua lakes is small). Anyway, my first day on the lake with the rod I did manage to land a 45 cm (18 inch) rainbow which was 1 kg. It ended up being smoked the next day and was very tasty. I caught it on a Genesta Lee, which is my own pattern (I tied the first one on the day my daughter was born, so this is named after her; I do have a photo of the fly, which I'll post below). This was the first fish I've caught on one. (I've only used it once or twice before despite her now being 5 years old! eep!) So, that's a double first, actually, a tripple first because this was also my first day fishing in 2013. It was quite funny as I went down after supper, and there were some fellows who had been fishing for a few hours and they had no luck to that point. I found a spot, and within 5 minutes I had my fish!
Anyway, the fishing was tough, and what would happen is someone would crack the code and land fish after fish, while nobody else would get a thing. Unfortuantely, I was never that one. This was my only fish for the two days of fishing I did. Well, except for a slightly larger brown which I foul hooked in the dorsal fin. At first I thought I was into a 5-6 lbs fish, but then when I got a look at it I thought it was not as impressive looking as it felt. Then I noticed it would pull sideways when I put pressure on it. Oh well, got it in and released it. I checked today before we left and I couldn't find it (so it appears to have recovered. The lagoon makes it easy to see if your released fish ended up belly up later).
Well, there were lots of fish, and at times they would come on the bite, but that was always "just after you left ..." or "... just before you got here ...", etc. Such is the joy of fishing.
- Jeff
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