World Flyfishing Champs waters

[chris williams]

This is specifically aimed at Kevin, Mike and Garth in NZ.

Guys, thanks for all your help and info during the Champs. Really appreciated by us guys.

Once the dust (or water?..) has settled, it'd be great to have your opinions of how the respective rivers and lake fished in the comps as opposed to your usual experiences/expectations of same.

I've still got a treasured copy of Peter Gould's 'The Complete Taupo Fishing Guide' and it'd be also interesting to view your local opinions of these venues with those of Peter's from over a quarter of a century ago.

Cheers and thanks again!

Chris

[KevinE]

Chris, I think that Garth will be best positioned to comment on this and I hope he does. He is a head controller (or something) for the champs so will have a better idea of what is happening. He also knows all these waters well as they are regularly fished in local comps. Not being a competition fisher, I don't fish these waters as often.

I've read Peter Gould's book but don't have a copy. Was Lake Otamangakau even in existence when Gould wrote his book? Other than that I suspect that most of the waters are pretty similar now, perhaps just more rainbows in the Wanganui than there were then?

[chris williams]

Thanks Kevin, hope all well your side?

Yes, just summarising a couple of points from Peter's book which I have got in front of me:

Otamangakau - Yes, he mentions the Tongariro power station hydro-lake. Apparently first flooded 1971. He does mention fishing methods whioch I'm not going to mention here in case the Czechs are reading!

He does mention Wanganui but with more reference to the estuary and bay in Taupo itself and the excellent smelt fishing at certain times of the year.

Cheers, thanks, and keep any snippets a'coming in!

Chris

[mikeh]

Chris

I agree with Kevin, Garth is the best to comment,especially on the Lakes. I fish the Waimak and Wihou quite often and they are good rivers. The Wihou is crystal clear blue with many "smaller" fish as is evidenced by the comp results. The Waimak has fewer, larger fish.

My personal favourite is the Wanganui, my Mom lives in the town, so I get to travel down there to see how she is getting on. She is happy to sit next to the river an chat to me while I fish. It is larger than the other two rivers and flows faster. The fish are also much larger.

These are just a sample of the fantastic rivers we are blessed to be allowed to fish. I will be avoiding these venues for a week or two though as I think the fishes mouth's will be a little sore. There are many other alternatives thank goodness. Will try and post some pics.

[mikeh]

Chris

These are some pics.

Attachment 2469
Wifes uncle on the Wanganui

Attachment 2470
Family on the Waimak

Attachment 2471
Family and Garth Plank on the Waimak

Attached thumbnail is uncle with a rainbow he got on the Wanganui.

[Scythe]

Now imagine that river full of 8lb -10lb SmallMouth ... YEAH BABY !


Seriously, amazing water you guys have access to. Makes us green with envy (nearly as green as the mighty Vaal)

[chris williams]

Chris

These are some pics.

Attachment 2469
Wifes uncle on the Wanganui

Attachment 2470
Family on the Waimak

Attachment 2471
Family and Garth Plank on the Waimak

Attached thumbnail is uncle with a rainbow he got on the Wanganui.

Wonderful stuff, thanks so much!

[garthp]

Hi All

I have just got back from the competition and a great time was had by all. The total number of fish caught for the 3 days was 4270 and of those 1500 were over 40cm. Some beats produced 100 plus fish over 5 sessions which is a phenominal amount. On beat 12 on the Waihou these were the numbers per session. Finland 29, Czec 31, next 28 then 4 then 15. As far as I am aware this it one of the highest number of fish caught in any World champs if not the highest. Not all beats were as productive so if you got one of the more difficult beats you would have been doing well with 10 fish.

The lakes were very difficult as the inflow to the lakes got stopped in Jan for maintenence to the Hydo canals. This has made fishing very unpredictable. There were very few blanks on the rivers but even the French who came 3rd had 2 blanks on the lakes. For the one Frenchman this was the first time he had ever blanked in the world. Just goes to show that even the best have problems.

The fishing conditions are very different out here especially on the spring creeks. Even though the SA team had a dissapointing result In my opinion they still did SA proud as the put there all into this comp We spent hours practicing new techneque and showing them the different style of fishing. We had some very long days. All credit to them as they stuck it out even when they had some very difficult beats and as far as I know out of the whole team there was only 1 blank across all the sessions and this was on a lake. Gary was the highest placed South African with a placing of I think 48th not a bad result.

Hopefully this explains a bit about the comp.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Hi All

I have just got back from the competition and a great time was had by all. The total number of fish caught for the 3 days was 4270 and of those 1500 were over 40cm. Some beats produced 100 plus fish over 5 sessions which is a phenominal amount. On beat 12 on the Waihou these were the numbers per session. Finland 29, Czec 31, next 28 then 4 then 15. As far as I am aware this it one of the highest number of fish caught in any World champs if not the highest. Not all beats were as productive so if you got one of the more difficult beats you would have been doing well with 10 fish.

The lakes were very difficult as the inflow to the lakes got stopped in Jan for maintenence to the Hydo canals. This has made fishing very unpredictable. There were very few blanks on the rivers but even the French who came 3rd had 2 blanks on the lakes. For the one Frenchman this was the first time he had ever blanked in the world. Just goes to show that even the best have problems.

The fishing conditions are very different out here especially on the spring creeks. Even though the SA team had a dissapointing result In my opinion they still did SA proud as the put there all into this comp We spent hours practicing new techneque and showing them the different style of fishing. We had some very long days. All credit to them as they stuck it out even when they had some very difficult beats and as far as I know out of the whole team there was only 1 blank across all the sessions and this was on a lake. Gary was the highest placed South African with a placing of I think 48th not a bad result.

Hopefully this explains a bit about the comp.

Thanks for the report and ur input.I appreciate it just like the others would.