CORRESPONDENCE:
Meanwhile another Email needs your attention:
Hi, Just reading the feed back etc. on prices for Taupo fishing licenses,
I agree $90 for a season is great value, but can’t see why a license say bought now can not be at a reduced rate bearing in mind there’s only 6 months more or less left till the new season licenses kick in.
Golf clubs as a example will offer a reduced membership based on the time of year.
It’s one way of increasing membership for the future.
It may be away of increasing full season license sales for the future as I gather licence sales are dropping ?
Your thoughts please?.
CHANGES TO TAUPO FISHING REGULATIONS?:
TRM can now confirm the Taupo Fishing Regulations from 2004 – amended 2010 – are being reconsidered in terms of minimum size limit reduction and increasing the daily bag limit. (That sorts out one request on TRM’s Christmas wish list.
So how do we know? SWMBO tried to get more copies of the minimum size trout chart from DOC who advised they were preparing a new chart for the new minimum size! That’s how anglers learn about changes to fishing regulations in Turangi.
The red tape rigmarole and time involved with any changes needing to be signed off by the Minister of Conservation is considered by anglers as quite ridiculous.
The Tongariro bucket list –
Fifty pools to fish before you die
A new revised Tongariro River fishing map with the Tongariro Pools ratings is being updated by Sporting Life at Turangi. This should be available “soon”…
The Tongariro River Ratings Chart
scores every individual pool characteristic for:
1 ACCESS – scored out of 3 for difficulties, good car/foot access;
2 DIFFICULTY – scored out of 2 for reported difficulties in getting the fly to the trout or finding the lie;
3 SETTING – scored out of 3 for natural beauty and pure enjoyment;
4 RELIABILITY – scored out of 9 to indicate reliability as a top producing pool all year round;
5 SNAGS – scored out of 1 i.e. if snags are a problem it scores 0;
6 WADING – scored out of 1 i.e. if waders not needed it scores 1;
7 PRESSURE – scored out of 1 if crowding is a problem then scores 0;
TOTAL – scores out of 20 – the closer to 20 the better the overall rating.
What a brilliant concept – except the pools below the road bridge through the Braids and beyond have suffered from continual excessive physical alterations in the last few years due to Council earthworks, flood prevention measures, mechanical excavation of a new canal between the Swirl Pool and Reed Pool, etc. so a total of 16 pools have been excluded from the ratings chart.
These maps also have heaps of other fishy info such as the best fishing knots for fly fishing, local distances, the Tongariro River Trail route for bikers, all pools are named and updated where necessary, etc.
It is over six years since the last plan and ratings chart was completed. So many changes have occurred to Tongariro Pools that it is well overdue – we know from the number of enquiries we received after we ran out of the original map. They should be complusory – Tongariro anglers should not be allowed on the river without one.
More local history:
The railway route argument continues…
On Wednesday the TRM report suggested the cutting from Kakahi was the earthworks at the start of a rail route to Turangi (but it was really to Taupo). Then by Friday’s report the critics quickly sorted us out.
But now we have to correct them. We would hate to mislead you! Info below is from the Tongariro Forest map produced in 1999 (by Kennett Bros and Gurney Carlyon & Assoc. with DOC). TRM were almost correct as there really was a rail connection planned between Owhango and Pukawa.
In 1905 Tureiti Te Heu Heu (paramont chief of the Tuwharetoa tribes) initiated a plan for a railway line to run through Tongariro Forest. From near Owhango (south of Kakahi on SH4) it was to follow the Whanganui River east as far as Mangatepopo Stream, then head northwest to the shores of Lake Taupo. From there timber and other goods were to be shipped across to Tapuaeharuru (you may now know it better as Taupo?). That would indicate the rail was to go to Tokaanu to connect with the wharf. Although the plan enjoyed strong support locally, apparently the government of the time were not so keen and it was eventually shelved in 1929 in favour of road alternatives.
