Trout Fishing on Lake Taupo with Pinnacle Charters

Fishing at the Maori Rock carvings

Richard is keen to take us out toward the Maori Rock Carvings, 14m carvings into a stone cliff only seen from the waters of Lake Taupo. Not only are the carvings a scenic place to stop, but Richard has recently had a good last few days catching trout in the area. It’s a double whammy!

As we approach the Maori Rock Carvings hidden in Mine Bay, Richard explains more about about the fancy fishing equipment he has, which is more than just your standard fishing rod.

An introduction to “Champagne Fishing”

“Today, we are going to be doing ‘Champagne Fishing’,” Richard says with a smile on his face. As you may have guessed “Champagne Fishing” is an easier type of fishing, otherwise known as trolling – and yes, it’s a bit different than bullying people on Twitter. With a diagram, Richard explains how trolling works using a weight and line attached to the line of your fishing rod, keeping your fishing line at a desired depth in the water. Then Richard can slowly move around the water, as well as moving the line around the water, with the boat. The fishing rod will be in a bent position as we move around, but as soon as the tension releases, that means a fish in on the other end! All we have to do is keep an eye on that rod, then reel up the fish once we think we have one hooked.

Richard assures us that we are not just driving the boat around on the water randomly though. He shows us his fish finder/chart plotter, which not only picks up where the fish are underneath us (and the small fish that the trout feed on), but allows Richard to plot the good spots. This surely increases our chances of catching at fish hugely!

A quick photo before the slippery guy jumps back into the water

Our first catch of many!

Sure enough, the rod straightens out as the tension loosens, then Richard is passing the rod onto Laura to attempt her first catch of trout ever! With some easy and smooth reeling, the trout slowly come to the surface, where Richard catches it in a net, takes the hook out of the trout’s fishy lips, and hands it over to Laura to hold. It’s a beautiful rainbow trout with shiny red scales on the side, spotted green upper scales, and pink cheeks. We are more keen to release the fish back into the water than to take it home for dinner, so we try to take photos of releasing it back, but the slimy and slippery bugger jumps back in the water, hitting the boat on the way out, and swims out of sight. He’s clearly had enough of our sh*t.

Revival of the mother fish

Only about three minutes after, Robin has the chance to reel another rainbow trout up, this time, it’s a female with a belly full of eggs. Of course, we want to release this one back, but it jumps out of Robin’s hands and onto the boat, knocking the wind out of it. When we try to release the fish, it does nothing but float! Noooo! Richard, with his heeling hands, gently pulls the fish back and forth to get some water flowing through its gills. The rainbow trout comes back to life, swimming away from us! Hurray!