A few weeks ago, Mudfish Marquand met my wife and I down on the Tongariro river in Turangi, New Zealand. I live in Auckland, which is four hours away from this magnificent river and Mudfish lives two hours away in Tauranga.
Its winter time here in New Zealand, yet there has been very low rainfall for some time now. As a consequence, the river was only flowing at around 22 m3/sec. Rainbows and Browns seem to move up the river in large numbers from lake Taupo once the water levels rise, or a 'fresh' happens.
Mudfish was wet-lining or 'swinging' using his beloved Fenwick 330-3 teamed up with a Sharpes 'The Gordon' reel - although Im sure I saw a JW Pridex Lightweight on there at some point. Im not sure what weight the Fenwick is.
I was nymphing using a Kilwell 52-107 8 wt together with a Grice and Young Fly Jecta 3 reel, and also a Kilwell 52-90 5wt, teamed up with a Pflueger 1495 reel.
The weather was great for fishing, the local pies and coffee were outstanding and we both loved every minute on this famous river using our older, yet very effective gear. I love using glass, and I blame Mudfish for it.
I normally watch these two local characters who although they don't generally use glass, they fish the river a lot and keep me laughing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1NO4oKIYJ8