Cicada season ranks as a high point in the Kiwi fishing calendar, yet due to wet weather of late, few if any of these large ungainly terrestrials failed to stretch their wings. Thankfully, my arrival coincided with a much needed warm spell and guess what…the cicadas came out to play…talk about being a clarty so and so! Better still, possessing little aerial deftness they struggle with even a faint breeze which sends them crashing to the water’s surface. And to trout, struggling cicadas represent your five-a-day. Searching the banks of the Tongariro river Gary Lyttle and I dropped onto a nest of hungry brown trout that eagerly scoffed our cicada imitations. Then came the difficult part of steering headstrong fish through a maze of sunken branches. Bar one, amazingly they all stayed on giving us a day to remember. Paul~
~A small head and broad shoulders indicate fast growth for this Tongariro Brown~
~Gary Lyttle displays what’s on offer when cicadas play ball~
