On Wednesday TRM blog featured the upper Tongariro River pools with info on Zane Grey’s influence from 1926, on Thursday was the middle pools update, and Friday the town pools update. So today is the lower Tongariro River Pools update.

When the map of the Tongariro Bucket List – Fifty pools to fly fish before you die – was updated these lower river pool ratings were deleted from the “Pool Ratings” chart above. The excuse was “All pools downstream of the SH1 bridge are subject to change after floods and WRC (Waikato Regional Council) activities”. That still applies.

When the map was originally published back in 2010 the most popular patrolled river section was the braids – see photo above. Now they have all but gone. This was mainly from a series of floods assisted by Council bulldozers that gouged out a new canal below the Bain Pool along the TLB – see photo below. They imagined they could shift the main flow over but the river preferred the original course down to the Reed Pool and is still split into two channels.

Despite the loss of fishing opportunities, there are several reasons for the continued popularity of the lower river. For anglers, the most notable physical change is the easier wading on sand and pebbles. After struggling over boulders and larger slippery stones in the upper reaches, the relief to find easy wading is considerable. Many older anglers with dicky knees and hips and ankles can only wade in the lower river.

The lower river is always targeted immediately after rain when anglers hope to ambush any spawning runs as the river levels drop. They are usually the first anglers the trout have encountered when they are still adjusting to the river flow. After spending three years leisurely cruising around the lake feeding mainly on smelt and Koura, when they enter the river it is a huge adjustment to change their diet to olive woolly buggers and glo bugs. They are completely out of their natural environment. As such, they are much easier to catch as they do not qualify as “river fish” but rather as lake fish that have entered the river to spawn.
This applies to all other tributaries to Lake Taupo as well.

Vehicle access is the big issue in the lower river. The TRB access for anglers the usual car parking is from Grace Road below the old Braids see photo above of the Braids car park with a walking track leading down to Duffs Pool and Reed Pool.


The TLB vehicle access off Te Rewha is restricted to the lower bridge pool with all the old vehicle tracks lower down now eroded into the river – see 2011 photos above.

For the lower reaches off the end of Grace Road, the vehicle access is more challenging – see photos above and below.


Vehicle access from the end of Grace Road is usually also difficult – particularly after rain – and confined to high clearance 4WD or rental cars or horses – see photo below of Duff’s Pool. The trout ignored the horses.
