Where is the Nurses Pool?  The photos are a giveaway but the recent history may still be of interest. It was originally known as the Nurse’s Pool as it was in close proximity to the house of the District Nurse in Kokopu Street, when this little colonial fishing village was known as Taupahi.

It is now called the Breakfast Pool because it was located so close to nearby housing and the TALTAC (Tongariro and Lake Taupo Anglers’ Club), where anglers could catch a trout before breakfast.

It has been a very consistent reliable pool and hardly changed for the last 20 years. On the latest Tongariro River Pools Rating Chart it scored very high at 18 out of 20. Broken down this was 3/3 for access, 2/2 for lack of difficulty, 3/3 for the classic setting, 9/9 for reliability, 0/1 for snags, 1/1 for wading, (waders hardly needed in warmer summer months), 0/1 for angler pressure.

The popular Breakfast Pool and Major Jones Pools are much the same but different… Other pools like the old Bridge Pool and Daisy Pool have lost their previous high ratings. Only the trout can explain how they have changed but they have not been interviewed yet.

Serious anglers are warned to stay away from this pool during summer months unless you want a junior audience and enjoy sharing it with local feral children, learners’ swimming lessons, dog¹s retrieve-the-stick games, skipping stones, canoeing practice, inflatable rafts out of control, etc. During weekends and summer holidays it is used as the local beach for family picnics. Now it is fished only from the LHS with the extended beach having easy access off Taupahi Reserve walkway.

Prior to the 2004 flood it was nymphed from RHS rocks and the side track remains, but the main flow has now moved further down the pool.

Old comments copied from TRM’s 2005 Report with photos from December 2025.

Park in Kokopu Street about 100 metres from the intersection with Poto Street and the track leads directly to the dozen or so steps to the tail of the pool.

Family supporters and wannabe anglers can safely watch and admire your casting skills from the beach or from the Birches footbridge 100 metres up river.

The main flow is strong and deep down the RHS before spreading out left at the top of the Major Jones. Since the big 2004 flood the Breakfast Pool is more suitable for wet liners – casting across to get strikes on the swing style. The standard rig is a fast sinking wet line and the standard menu is a small olive woolly bugger, but there are no rules on the Tongariro.

Currently, the nymphers tend to thrash the top and middle of the pool and wet liners dredge the lower extremes.

You have not fly fished the Tongariro River until you have checked out the Nurses Pool! The entire stretch from the swingbridge down to Major Jones corner is now referred to as the Breakfast Pool, but just to add to your knowledge of the local geography, the run above the Birches swingbridge was previously referred to as the Rip.

Another little “pool” was located at the toe of the Breakfast Pool was known as Widow’s Cruse. In Barbara Cooper’s booklet, “POOLS OF THE TONGARIRO” published in 1975, she suggested that after the Breakfast Pool had yielded fish, the Widow’s Cruse would usually yield a few more.

If you can endure more recent outdated history of the Tongariro River changes, say over the last decade, then TRM’s previous brief 12-year-old video of the town pools will be of interest. The deterioration of the Bridge Pool popularity alone is a reminder of the way anglers have to keep alert and constantly adapt to the river flow changes…