Tench Fishing at Forest Lakes

These pictures were taken on my first coarse fishing trip of the summer at Forest Lakes in Otaki.

Forest Lakes are very pretty, and a lovely venue to fish, which is just as well as it involves a 160km round trip from Wellington. While there are plenty of good trout and sea fishing venues in the region there is very little worthwhile coarse fishing to be had.

The weather was warm and overcast, which gave me hope that I would be able to bag a few Tench, which were the main target of this trip. I was particularly keen to try out my new roach pole, which I purchased on my last trip to the UK 18 months ago.

The swim was very weedy, so the pole was the best choice of tool anyway as it would (hopefully) allow me to keep any Tench from diving to far into the weed. I was fishing in about 7” feet of water, used 4.6lb main, 3.2lb bottom and a size 14 barbless hook.

I used sweetcorn as bait and as loose feed, as well as breadcrumb as groundbait, so pretty simple really.

To be honest I would have been happy with one Tench, but in 4hrs fishing caught 11 Tench averaging around 3lb each and a solitary Rudd. I would normally put the fish straight back, but used the keepnet for the first few, so I could take some pictures.

One of the joys of fishing is the unexpected. I had fairly low expectations on this trip and was hoping for one or two fish at best and certainly didn’t expect to “bag up”.

The swim.

A Tench.

Xmas Trip 08

Neena and I went to the Tongariro National Park for our annual Xmas break. This area is home Mt Ruapehu NZ’s largest volcano, along with the smaller Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe volcano’s. Check out the link [http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/national-parks/tongariro/features/] for more details.

The original aim of this trip was to walk the Tongariro Northern circuit, a 4-5 day walk around Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe. After this we planned to visit the Coromandel Peninsula for some fishing and lazing around on the beach.

For a variety of reasons the trip kept being scaled back, so that in the end we didn’t have time to do the whole circuit, with the compromise being to walk the Tongariro Crossing [http://www.tongarirocrossing.org.nz/] day walk, then chill out for a few days before heading back to Wellington.

I had walked the crossing before a few years ago, so knew how nice the scenery was. The trouble was, that at the time I had a real bad dose of food poisoning, and the trip turned out to be something of an ordeal, so I was keen to have another go at the walk under better circumstances. Neena was happy as she had not done the walk before, and to be honest, was rather relieved not to be walking the whole circuit.

We spent a leisurely day driving up to the NP stopping at various cafes (good) and “new age” type shops (not so good) en-route, before reaching our destination of National Park Village where we stayed for the next two nights at the YHA hostel there.

The first thing we did on arrival was to check the mountain weather forecast, which it turned out was for unsettled weather for the next 4 or 5 days. However it wasn’t due to start raining until the following evening, giving us a nice little window of opportunity. The next day as promised, the sun was shining, so we jumped on the 7am bus to the start of the walk at Mangatapopo Hut.

For the first hour or so the track winds its way gently uphill, before commencing steeply up the first of two sizeable climbs. The first climb was a bit of a surprise as it had been substantially rerouted and upgraded since I last walked it, with the track being redirected over an old lava flow rather than zigzagging up a very steep face. This is a big improvement and seems to have got rid of the “traffic jams” I encountered the last time I was there. The Tongariro Crossing is very popular, particularly with tourists, and there can be several hundred people walking the route at any one time, which for me took a bit of getting used to; on most of the tramps I do, you rarely see anyone else, so it is a bit of a culture shock.

I had a nice rest at this point admiring the scenery, but mostly waiting for Neena to catch up (she doesn’t tramp as much as me, so struggles a bit on the steeper sections). If we had a bit more time then a climb to the top of Mt Ngauruhoe would have been on the cards. I am told that getting to the top entails a gut busting grunt up a steep scree slope, but which is worth it for the view from the top and for the apparently exhilarating run/slide back down again.

The next part of the walk across South Crater was nice and easy with some great views of Mt Tongariro. After this there was another climb up to the summit of Red Crater, which marked the highest point of the walk at 1886 metres.

After another wait to admire the scenery, we dropped down steeply to the Emerald Lakes where we stopped for a well-deserved lunch break. Neena was especially comforted that it was all, or mostly all, down hill from here.

In more ways than one as it turned out. There is plenty of interest on the second half of the crossing, but for me the really spectacular stuff was behind us. I was just finishing of a rather nice cheese scone when the clouds, which had steadily been building up, decided enough was enough, and it started to rain. Not too heavily at first, but it steadily got worse accompanied by high winds.

The rain arrived rather earlier than forecast. No surprises there then, as in my experience the NZ weather forecasters are no better than their compatriots in the UK.

At this point I packed the camera out of harms way, gritted my teeth, and got on with the long slog out to the Ketetahi road end. There are therefore no pictures beyond this point, so you will have to use your imagination. Failing that you can either jump on a plane and check it out for yourself, or take the budget option, and click on the link above.

The last 3 hours of the walk were in heavy rain, and involved a long descent down to the bush line and then another long walk through a forest to the roadend and salvation.

Mt Ruapehu taken from the hostel at National Park Village

Mt Ngauruhoe taken on the road up to Whakapapa

This was taken near the start of the walk showing the gentle climb up from Mangatepopo Hut.

At the top of the first climb looking back towards Mangatapopo Hut.


Yours truly at the Red Crater with Mt Tongariro in the background

Near the South Crater

Mt Ngauruhoe

Looking down on the Emerald Lakes

The Emerald Lakes

The next day the weather was also pretty wet so we decided we had had enough of NationalPark Village and hit the road.

The Whanganui National Park [http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/national-parks/whanganui/] is fairly near by, and as neither of us had been there before, we decided to check it out. The National Park is centred around the Whanganui River, which serves as the main route through the park, as there are relatively few walking tracks. Many people hire canoes to travel along the river, staying overnight at the various campsites along the way. The nearest access point to the river was the settlement of Pipriki, so that was where we headed.

Pipiriki didn’t look that far on the map, but turned out to be 55km away along a narrow, winding and bumpy gravel road, with some fairly serious drops thrown in for good measure. The settlement when we finally arrived was tiny, with nothing really open, so we had to content ourselves with just checking out the river. I must admit that the area looked really nice, though the river, with all the rain that had fallen was looking a bit high, and I don’t think we would have fancied our chances in a canoe, even if there was anywhere open to hire one. Still, I have seen enough to stick a Whanganui canoeing trip on the list of things to do.

The bridges spans the Whanganui River at Pipiriki and pretty much marks the end of the road.

The Whanganui River

After this we headed back to civilisation an then onto the town of Ohakune, where we stayed for a couple of nights.

Ohakune is very quite indeed at this time of the year, and only comes alive in the winter when it serves as a base for people skiing the Turoa ski resort. It is a nice little town though, especially as there were so few people staying there, which actually gave it a chilled out relaxed feel. Most kiwi’s head to the coast over Xmas with the more popular spots being horribly overcrowded, which is hardly my kind of thing these days.

We were originally going to camp at Ohakune, but the weather was still pretty grim. and our gear still hadn’t dried from doing the crossing, consequently we decided to stay at the Matai Hostel. The hostel was clean, tidy and dry, so served its purpose, though was utterly devoid of character.

One pleasant surprise was that the town had a cinema, and happened to be showing Children of the Silk Road, a film that Neena particularly wanted to see. Not a bad movie as turned out. The theatre was pretty decrepit, and certainly wins a price for the most smelly cinema I have ever been in, the projector also broke down several times, though to be honest, the above probably added to the overall experience.

To my amazement, the next day dawned, hot and sunny, so we jumped into the car and headed up to the nearby ski resort of Whakapapa.

Though the ski season had long finished, the resort operates a couple of chair lifts throughout the summer for walkers and tourists. After much cajoling I managed to convince Neena (who not been on a chair lift before) that she wanted to go up on the chair lifts. This turned out to be the nicest day of the holiday, as the scenery up on the mountain was just splendid, and we had a great time mucking around on the large patches of snow up there. We could have hired a toboggan, but found that a piece of plastic makes a pretty effective alternative, and is a damned sight cheaper.

A rather nice waterfall taken from the top of the first chairlift.

This was taken at the top of the second chairlift.

We stayed another day in Ohakune before heading back to Wellington. It was a shorter Xmas break than I would have liked, but was great fun.

I have quite a number of tramping trips planned this summer, so watch this space…