Continuing on from Monday’s Daily Report…

Tourist anglers combat casting competing in the Tongariro Bridge Pool at dawn last Saturday.

Below is a brief slide show of the pools usually referred to as the “Town Pools” on the Tongariro River as they are all within easy walking distance of TRM and other tourist accommodation in the village.  These would have to be the most heavily fished trout pools anywhere in NZ, but do not despair – they are also the most reliable and productive – providing the trout spawning runs can navigate the gravel extraction quarrying in the lower river (see below).  What a wonderful river.  It has to be carefully protected for the future tourist anglers.  The economic future of Turangi relies on keeping these pools 100% pure.

Below are the “lower river” pools.  Unfortunately this lower river has since been altered by diggers and bulldozers on “flood protection” works for Waikato Regional Council (? which most anglers refer to as the Tongariro gravel extraction swindle?) but the images still provide a reasonable impression of the very different river conditions and what anglers can expect down there.  All anglers know that aggradation cannot be prevented or fixed by Council diggers.  But Council have never listened to them.

Some of the images date back 12 years ago to 2006 – which confirms how long these interesting TRM Daily Reports have been regularlycomplaining about the problems.  The photos show how long the lower river has been abused by the Council and Government authorities – who were appointed to protect it…  Anglers cannot hope to match dairy or irrigation or hydro power interests, but now that tourism $$$ are affected by their continuing neglect and abuse, it is finally being regarded as a “serious” regional and national problem.  “Tourism” has more political and commercial clout than dairy or hydro, so hopefully at last someone may respond to protect the natural flows in the lower river… but don’t hold your breath.