OK. We cheated – again. The following reports have been lifted from TRM’s blog in 2016. The previous photos of Tony Marks attracted more anglers’ attention so the reports deserve a rerun…
The team are back for their annual pilgrimage to deal to the Tongariro River. There is much more to his story than just catching trout.
This report is dedicated to all those grizzly older anglers complaining about their new hips and knees and ankles and whining on how they can’t see the indicator to pick up any soft takes as well as they used to or they can’t wade in places where they used to fish… Next time you feel your age then have a thought for this inmate – Tony Marks.
TRM’s Night Fishing master class
This is an incredible story. If you ever wanted lessons in night fishing this is the man. He is Tony Marks from Roseneath in Wellington. Toni has been applying his special techniques of fishing on the Tongariro in a pitch black environment for the last 30 years.
He learnt all his tricks to apply during night-time from other old masters – firstly John Milner, who used to own “Anglers Paradise” in Turangi back in the good ol’ days. The number of ten pound plus browns JM landed down the lower Tongariro in the middle of the night is legendary. (I can already hear you asking “Which Pool?” We can reveal it. Dans Pool! The first real pool up from the Delta. I can safely tell you as – on last report – the pool has gone now.) The huge browns are still there every night feeding on Koura but you need to be able to feel your way in the dark conditions like Tony… But I digress.
Tony’s other mentor was Jim Gosman. Jim was the well known cop at National Park for many years and retired to become a fishing guide – particularly targeting the Wanganui (it didn’t have an “h” back then) and Whakapapa Rivers. Their contribution was major but what we need to explain is Tony’s special advantage. He has a distinctly almost unfair technique over all you other night anglers.
He achieves it by concentrating everything on “sound” and “feel”. As you can imagine on a dark night on the Tongariro it is like inside a coal mine – there is no other way. Any headlight or torch would immediately spook any trout to ruin any chance of hooking a BIG brown. So Tony has finely tuned his other senses to perfection to rely completely on ‘sound’ and ‘feel’.
i.e. One of the problems in the pitch black dark of night is to know where the other bank is or how far can one cast without snaring willows. Any over-cast results in the loss of all your gear tangled in the willows, blackberry, what-ever. Again Tony has refined his skills to re-tie on a new rig by ‘feel’ alone.
He is an expert at tying his flies – red setters & woolly buggers – in the dark using his tongue to feel the progress of the knot. Tony advises that the tongue becomes a magnifying device when tying flies in the dark. Try practising that with no light…
Tony commenced his trout fishing career in his mid-forties when his favourite pool for swinging a wet line was the Swirl Pool (they took it away from him – another famous pool that has now disappeared under the blade of a WRC – Waikato Regional Council – bulldozer when they gouged the canal from the Braids to the Reed Pool). The images now illustrate his latest favourite pool where the canal rejoins the main river at the top of Reeds Pool.
Another favourite is Major Jones – not from the beach but by wading way down where few mortals are prepared to venture almost joining the Island Pool. From there it is a long deep hard wade back up against the strong current but Tony manages it easily.
Tony is known as a particularly strong wader. At the Hydro Pool it was not uncommon for him to cast and swing his fly across to mix it with the lines of nymphers that used to gather at the mouth of the Mangamawhitiwhiti Stream.
Tony’s skill for fishing at night was proven beyond doubt on a fishing trip many years ago up into the Whakapapa Gorge. Night time arrived quickly while they were still trapped in the steep gorge, but Tony confidently provided the lead to his fishing guide and mates back out through the gloomy black gorge. He was quite unconcerned, using his unique navigation skills that make him one of the Tongariro’s favourite sons.
Photos below taken in 2016 by his fishing mate Rob Irwin from Masterton (who is desperately trying to remain anonymous) during one of the coldest wettest days that winter. But that just added to the challenge for Tony. Rob reports he is the most companionable fishing mate with such a great sense of humour and endless perseverance. He never minds sharing a room and is the sort of mate who never minds if Rob wants to leave the lights on to read late into the night.
There is an obvious reason which you might have picked up from the photos. A giveaway is to have a careful squiz at Tony’s “wading pole”. It is a special custom designed model with a curve at the end (fitted with a small sledge that has a memory – true) so that he can feel the bottom contours. Tony is completely blind…
So next time you are feeling weary or even think about complaining about the conditions and how hard the fishing is, just think of Tony!. He is the complete inspiration. If he can catch trout in such negative conditions, so can you.
Other fishos staying at TRM panic when they see an obviously blind angler probing his way to the fish cleaning bench to clean his usual limit bag. He does a better job than most sighted anglers.
Thank you Tony & Rob for choosing TRM and being such amiable guests. The other TRM inmates are in awe…
Image below taken in 2016 by local fishing guide John Baker who noticed Tony playing this trout and offered to help without realising Tony’s skills (aka handicap?). He was in awe too…
‘It’s no real nuisance to be blind’: How Toni Marks goes fishing when he can’t see
Sue Hoffart Oct 03 2021
Retired psychiatrist Toni Marks can’t see what the fuss is about.
When strangers exclaim over his ability to successfully fly fish while blind and standing chest deep in the Tongariro River, he claims it’s the fish that do the work because they have to swim to him.
The 80-year-old has been visiting the Taupō region for 38 years to holiday and fish for trout with friends, including former flatmates from his medical school days.
Marks was in the final year of a medical degree when he learned his poor vision was much more serious than he’d realised. Within 10 years, his rare degenerative eye disease Retinitis pigmentosa had progressed to the point that he was completely blind. By then he was a qualified psychiatrist with a busy hospital job, a wife and a young family.
“It’s no real nuisance to be blind,” he says of his career choice. “Sometimes, it’s an advantage.
“It’s quite straightforward because it’s a talking branch of medicine and I can sense body language quite readily. The way a person talks and their cadence of voice can tell me about their posture.
Marks said patients were often more at ease with him because they could see he had his own issues.
During those years, fishing provided an escape from the intensity of a job that revolved around private practice as well as busy mental health units, emergencies and shift work in the public hospital system.
When he was called on to give evidence in criminal cases, work could occasionally intrude on his trout haunts. One snowy winter fishing expedition on the Tongariro River was cut short when he had to dash to Taupō Airport to fly home for a court case.
“There were nights I’d be on duty and called out at three o’clock in the morning to go and see someone who was far from well and maybe needed to be admitted or committed.
“But there’s no way you can think about work when you’re in the river. It’s a wonderful contrast. You’ve got to be concentrating all the time, you’ve got to put the fly where you want it, not get caught in the willows behind, stay upright when you’re up to your armpits.”
Toni Marks says being blind is sometimes an advantage on his annual fishing trips to Taupō.
An unintentional fisherman
Marks’ trout fishing began unintentionally, on a family holiday at Kuratau. He was determined to give an eel-catching lesson in the nearby Kuratau River when he discovered the waterway held only trout, not eels. With fishing gear assembled from their rented bach, Marks ventured out with his son and daughter after dinner.
“The first fish I caught was at midnight, and it was freezing cold. This beautiful five-pound trout. I knew I’d caught it but thought it was still in the water. I had dragged it what seemed like several hundred yards along the beach before I realised it was ashore.”
Daughter Lucy still enjoys fishing and, for several years now, has joined her father, uncle and their friends on the annual visit to Tongariro.
These fishing pilgrimages began in the mid-1980s, when a friend invited the psychiatrist to join him for a long weekend away.
Marks relished it all: the camaraderie and storytelling, trips to Tūrangi Bakery, the joy of learning fly-fishing secrets and the pleasure of being on the Central Plateau.
“We always come here. It’s probably the best fishing in the world, with the best pools in the world, just a few hours’ drive from Wellington.”
Marks said the climate around the Tongaririo River was wonderful.
“The best days are when you get drizzle and cold; it’s perfect fishing. The fish tend to run upriver when you get a southerly.
“But you also get lovely, sunny days when one of the beauties is the birdlife. In my favourite possie on the Major Jones [a bridge near Tūrangi], there is usually a grey warbler on the other side of the river.
“There was a thrush singing from the tallest tree when I was fishing with my daughter in the late afternoon, and it was utterly beautiful, with the music of the white water.”
Marks said he enjoyed the unpredictability of his chosen pursuit; the way a seemingly hopeless standing-for-hours morning can turn to a rush of adrenaline with the tug of a fish. While his catch is usually released, a few are retained to be salted and sugared and cooked in a portable smoker.
Fishing while blind
Learning to fly fish while blind has been no trouble.
Marks said he sometimes needed help to reach his preferred fishing holes, depending on friends to guide him down steep inclines or steer him away from tripping hazards on bush tracks leading to the river.
He said they would tell him how far he was from the opposite bank and explain where any overhanging branches lie, describing distance in car lengths.
He described standing alongside a friend to cast down the face of a nine-metre cliff, jiggling the line when told a fish was approaching, then scrambling down the cliff to land his trout.
Like all good fishermen, he values local knowledge and will ask around to find out how his favourite spots might have changed since his last visit.
In terms of technique, Marks said fishing without vision was easy enough.
“It’s actually not very hard. It just means I need to wet line, where you toss the fly in the water, so the fish does all the work for you. I don’t do nymphing, where you’ve got to watch for an indication of the fish taking the hook. I tried having my brother-in-law tell me when to strike, but that was a total fail.
“I can’t dry fly fish, where you stalk the fish by creeping through the undergrowth, but I’m happy to go to the Major Jones and fish on my own.”
He also has a tip for anyone struggling to thread nylon through the eye of small or awkward hooks.
“The secret, when you can’t see what you’re doing, is to use the tongue. The tongue is a magnifying instrument. People all round me put glasses on to do this.
It’s not just the fishing that appeals to Marks as a person who is blind.
“At night, my friends want to go home, but I don’t because sound becomes magnified. You get a reduction in the general noise, the temperature drops and there’s a clarity of sound when it’s cooler.
“Just as dark is settling in, the birds are all sorting out who’s going to sleep with whom, and it’s all just exquisite. And there’s an evening smell of woodsmoke, when people are lighting log burners in houses nearby.”
For the last five years, Marks and his fishing party have stayed at Tongariro River Motel in Tūrangi because, he said, owner Ross Baker was “a beaut bloke”.
“He and his wife Pip look after fishermen extremely well, and they’re very good hosts.”
Sue Hoffart is a travel writer, and had recently been writing fishing articles for Destination Great Lake Taupō.