ADMIRALS POOL
Further to the report to identify the Admiral of Admiral Pool. More TRM historic fishing reports from the good old days…
Latest photos of Admirals Pool taken on 20 February 2025. The only activity seen was from locals picking organically grown wild blackberries. Also, note the boulders in the car parks to prevent tourists from driving into the river.
Again, we repeat Tongariro Pools like this deserve better recognition of their history. Throughout NZ other bike trails feature tourist information panels to explain their history. The Tongariro River Trail and various famous fishing pools are now over one hundred years old with many interesting backgrounds that tourists love to read about. TRM offered to pay for and provide information panels in key tourist spots like Admirals Pool but Toepaw Council were not interested and refused permission. They prefer boulders instead – the usual sad response…
Admirals Pool Report from July 2006
Disregard the 2005 negative comments. Admirals is back! After the 2004 flood this pool has taken over a year to settle and is now holding very well – arguably the second best (after the Plank Pool above Bains?) most improved pool for 2006, according to TRM inmates… But never believe everything they tell us…
(Do you remember the Plank Pool? Another interesting Tongariro Pool Report from about twenty years ago, indicates changes in Tongariro Pools’ popularity. The Plank Pool mentioned disappeared under the WRC (Waikato Regional Council) scheme to reduce the danger of flooding in the lower river.)
Successful recent converts to Admirals tell us the best lie is generally in the centre gut of the pool just towards the tail, or up in the head, or in the tail – get the picture? Cover all the water.
Access it from the track to Kamahi Pool, 25 25-minute walk via the Koura Street footbridge. Also, do not forget there are a couple of good quieter pockets worth inspecting between Kamahi and this pool.
And even more important – do not forget to continue the tramp over the stones upriver to above the rapids, under the cliff where the bank is easily accessible, to cast directly into the main current opposite the popular corner spot. (This spot is now known as the Cicada Pool)
Also below where the side channel is blocked off. This is one of our worst kept secret spots. I’m not sure what this is called now but guides seem to like it far too much. So what about giving it your own special name so no-one will know where you caught them….
July 2005 Report
Another pool dramatically altered by the 2004 flood. Admirals hardly merits AA sign posts on SH 1 any longer, or even on the DoC river map – unless it was for prime rafting water. The previous riffles are now a fast run from below the lofty pumice cliffs below the Stag Pool (Now known as the Cicada Pool) before funnelling into the Kamahi Pool. Access to fish the pool below the yellow cliffs is easiest from the Stag Pool carpark. Access to this side road is about 3 km south of Tongariro River Motel, then a further 1 km down to the river bank.
The old Admirals carpark drops off where you can look over a pool with deep powerful swirling eddies which splits into two channels towards the tail. Old steps on the north side before the original car park lead to some shallow pocket water which can be crossed to an island (Now gone). So better to take the right fork towards the Stag Pool where a foot track upriver leads to some more interesting pockets along LHS. DoC advise this track will be extended eventually – promises, promises? – to link Red Hut and Birches swing bridges. (To avoid crossing privately owned land the Tongariro River Trail was eventually moved to follow SH1 to the Trout Centre)
Alternatively the walking track up RHS from Birches swing bridge (past the Hydro) takes about 25 minutes and has the advantage of also accessing the top of Kamahi below Admirals, or continuing further south towards Cattle Rustlers for more athletic anglers. We try to encourage tourists on this track to enjoy some of the last remnants of native bush – mainly ferns and Manuka rapidly being smothered by blackberry – and to hear what is left of the morning chorus from Tuis and Bellbirds on the anglers’ access side track heading down to Kamahi.
Bird life here extends onto the river where ducks’ antics help to fill in the attention gaps between casts. Another option, not for the faint-hearted, is to tackle one of the faint tracks through the bush and blackberry over the bank for polaroid spotting and nymphing the runs below Kamahi and Neverfail Pools. You will need a net.
Do not be dismayed by the apparent loss of the Admirals. It could just as easily return again? The Tongariro River should be an intriguing challenge. How often do we all risk spoiling the occasion, by returning again and again to the same pool(s), which we thought we knew intimately, where we have fished successfully before? Inevitably we risk frustration and/or disappointment if it changes at all, (or if some other species of angler is there first) instead of testing our abilities and instincts, by searching for new more challenging fly fishing experiences. On the Big T there is so much potential for increased pleasure and satisfaction on new water, stalking and hooking and landing and releasing (?) fresh run trout from new untested pools. That is the challenge. Continually seek and test new pocket water, which is constantly altering its form and character.
It is almost impossible to find pools in the upper river region which still fish the same as two years ago. The ever-interchanging distinctive element of riffles and reaches and pools are a feature of the Tongariro. These offer a great annual leveller for all fly fishing aficionados – everyone will regularly be challenged to learn new skills. The moment your favourite noname pool is sussed, you can bet that the lie, or the course, or the flow, or the depth, will change after the next fresh and spoil your expectations.
Every fly fishing trip should be and can be a new adventure. So we implore anglers to recapture the childhood excitement of discovery in a new pool.
What a wonderful river – a forever-changing challenging recreational resource!
Named after Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Jellicoe, second Governor General of New Zealand, 1920 – 1924. It is recalled that when staying at Taylor’s lodge, Lord Jellicoe used to leave quietly without saying where he was going and would return with plenty of fish. It was found that he caught most of them below the old Ministry of Works quarry. Joe Frost (well known resident guide) recalls him as a very good angler and very friendly. One day when Lord Jellicoe forgot his lunch, he shared Joe’s a cup of tea from his billy.
Where Admirals Pool is now located – below the washed-out car park via an unsealed track from State Highway 1 – was previously named on the 1928 Map as Gun Club Reach.
The booklet relates that it was named from the traps set up by the Tongariro Gun Club for trap shooting from the car park high ground above the reach. Above that pool was known as Mill Race up to the higher cliffs on the LHS.
On a Tourist & Publicity map of 1929, the Cicada Pool is also shown here at the top of the pool under the cliffs although by 1932, Whitney’s map named it the Fly Pool.
