Wenerei, 28 Hurae, 2010 (Apparently it is Maori language week…)
More strange correspondence:
Email received yesterday:
heads up – the 22lb wakatipu fish you headline as a salmon, is in fact a rainbow trout.
Might wish to correct this, TRM being the home of rainbow trout fishing.
Regards Chris
Controversy is good. (It does wonders to increase the numbers of visitors to the TRM website.) So naturally TRM likes to stimulate discussion. But we confess we need to explain carefully when such serious TRM salmon fishing reports are misinterpreted…
Naturally we are astonished and our professional journalist pride is deeply wounded when someone points out a possibility of an error (?) in such an accurate widely read high quality reputable fishing report…
So you can consider any or all of the following explanations while we also take the opportunity to correct some other misleading impressions:
1 Some South Island fishos are sooo sensitive. If you read TRM’s report carefully again you will note it does not actually suggest it is a salmon – quote:
“This is what a 22 pound salmon looks like.”
2 I have carefully checked the comprehension with the TRM dictionary called SWMBO (who used to be a real teacher) who confirms I did not have sex with, or rather I did not call the trout a salmon but was simply referring to it as a measure of relative size. So TRM’s english grammar language was properly done after all…
3 Of course it is a rainbow trout. We knew that. We catch them like that in Lake Taupo all the time too. Most of the silver bullet rainbow trout that break off are at least 22 pound. But we don’t promote or attempt to advertise them so blatantly. As all South Island fishos know and often claim, we already have too many anglers on Lake Taupo and the Tongariro River.
4 TRM was only trying to illustrate the size of salmon landed at Taumaranui (now upgraded to “The Salmon Fishing Capital of NZ”) from the Wanganui River recently as TRM anglers do not catch many salmon in Lake Taupo for comparing sizes. Mind you, some of the Tongariro trout fight better than salmon anyway.
5 I promise to try to remember to take off my polaroids and wear reading specs when posting TRM Fishing Reports and will use Boof to proof read them to prevent typos and avoid the possibility of miscomprehension of fishy species.
6 Everyone knows and acknowledges Turangi is the Trout Fishing Capital of the World. i.e. Zane Grey did not even bother fishing the South Island at all. He regarded Lake Wakatipu as more of a nursery.
7 Tongariro River is unquestionably recognised the best fly fishing river in the world for wild Rainbow Trout. That is why we live here instead of Queenstown or Twizel.
8 Resident Brown trout in the lower Tongariro are so huge and numerous we prefer not to mention them in print. Turangians and TRM fishos insist we keep them hidden as arguably our best kept secret. South Islanders may question or ridicule or even refute that claim. That is fine by us too.
9 Unlike South Island anglers, Tongariro anglers do not like walking. We have to admit, this is true. Tongariro anglers prefer catching fish instead of walking. We just have to stand in one spot and the trout come past us. This lazy practice makes a nonsense out of the whole process of sighting a feeding trout and painfully stalking and one false cast and they are spooked for the next week and then walking miles to the next pool.
After a Tongariro trout is released, they go straight back to the same lie to wait to be caught again..
Nevertheless TRM readers may enjoy some of the comments from contributors to the South Island based website:
It started off with:
x NakiBrown - Im a newbe so please excuse my comment when I ask is this a Salmon? The fishing report from Tongariro river motel calls this a Salmon, but this thread would lead me to believe its a trout?
x TheBadger – Which fish are ya referring to mate? So far there have been no pictures of salmon posted. All fish excluding the one in my earlier post were rainbows. The one in my post was a brown. I don’t know why the Tongariro river motel was referring to salmon, there are no sustained runs of Salmon in the N.I. Possibly they were referring to a steelhead (which is an anadromous rainbow trout).
x Andy W – That whole report of TRM’s yesterday was one where the writer was Taking the Mickey – or extracting the piss if you like.
x Chris Dore – TRM got it wrong. Its a rainbow. Being based on the Tongariro, Im sure they just made a typo.