I hope I can tell this story without offending anyone. To avoid any such possibility the names have been forgotten. To start with, the tale was told to me by an inmate(1) below who was leaving TRM when I asked to take a photo of his neat trout sculpture on the back of the ute. (He called it his Covid moment – to find something to do during lockdown.) But the accompanying story was so amusing I thought we should share it.

Below are two regular TRM anglers (2 & 3) who might be recognised by other regular Tongariro anglers. Their “Rastafarian” disguises were desperately adopted a few years ago so they could infiltrate the line-up of “Bro’s” in the Bridge Pool early in the morning gloom without being recognised as trespassing tourist anglers. It worked…

The Bridge Pool would have to be the most popular pool in NZ. Steven (from Creel Tackle Shop) explains that the fish congregate below due to the road bridge. The heavy traffic rumbling across the bridge creates vibrations that must frighten them. They cautiously wait until an old-timer who has made the spawning trip before leads the way up under the bridge and then the rest follow. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has interviewed the trout yet, so we accept Steven’s explanation.

So early one particular morning the angler(1) sneaked down to the Bridge Pool only to find the regular early morning queue of about 8 bros lined up thrashing the water to foam from the TLB beach. (True Left Bank looking down-river) A common sight. His only choice to join the fun was to cross over and wade in from the TRB in the hope that the spawning run might have been pushed over by the pressure from the team on the beach. In no time he hooked up when one of the Bro’s rudely loudly shouted at him to “go away” (i.e. F___ OFF!). He tried to hold his ground but the abuse was so threatening and convincing he retreated back across the bridge. Then he was alarmed to discover he was being followed and was approached by the dreadlocked villain disguised in dark glasses and hat etc.

Just as he was about to panic he realised, to his huge relief, who it was – an old friend who he had fished with often before.

Only on the Tongariro….