Looking down river TRB from where the track emerges onto Reeds Pool beach. Yesterday TRM report showed some of the successful anglers at Reeds Pool.  Today’s report is focused on the river following the minor fresh floods recently. It has changed slightly with a few more snags but – so far – appears to be fishing better than ever. 

There is definitely more flow though the head of Duffs and Log Pools which add an element of adventure to the crossing to get over to the TLB of the old river.  Wading across down river is hard enough, but returning against the current is now at your peril.  To wade back across from the Log Pool anglers are warned they will need a stout wading pole and/or another brave angler to link up with.

Any description of the river below the Braids is confused by the snag infested canal excavated by the Waikato Regional Council (WRC) engineers.  Their canal destroyed all the old Braids pools such as the Honeypot, etc. so there is now more concentration on the Reeds-Jones Pools located below their canal.

The only certainty is ‘change’ – see TRM’s video now three years old below.  This lower river keeps changing river bed contours. With each fresh in 2017 the volume down the old river increases. That explains why these lower river pools were excluded from any assessment in the Pool Ratings on the new Tongariro River map – “FIFTY POOLS TO FLY FISH BEFORE YOU DIE”.

As you realise, but they – WRC – have not yet discovered after fifty years of meddling based on “scientifically based expert engineers advice” (?), any river will find its own course.  After they excavated their canal below the old Swirl Pool it broke out back down the old river bed below the Plank Pool.  The increased speed of flow then broke through below the Bends Pool to bypass the DeLatours loop and destroy the biggest brown trout nursery in the Taupo region. 

Try and tell any anglers that was intended in the WRC planning…  Yeah right! Below the confluence of the canal on right and Log Pool in the original river on left at the head of Reeds Pool is a big log that is held down by the weight of all the woolly buggers hanging off it… Looking upriver to the head of Reeds Pool at the convergence of the canal on right and Log Pool on left.  One of the attractions for many down here is the easy wading as indicated.  Anglers could get by with just a pair of red band gumboots.  The tide was still going out at the time these images were taken on Monday with the Tongariro flowing at around 33 cumecs – about 30% more than normal flow. Looking down Reeds Pool TRB towards some new snags left behind by the last flood.  They will move with the next fresh. Below Reeds & Jones Pool on the TLB is Smallmans Reach – once a popular detination for anglers walking down the TLB.  Now the track is eroded away and there is not a single foot print on the beach. The Braids car park.  The access from Grace Road is deteriorating via a rough metalled pot-hole track but does not discourage keen fishos.