By exploiting Rugby World Cup fever on fb posts TRM hope to achieve more impact, as this post has a very important message for overseas based anglers, far more important than the usual boring fishy update?  
TRM fishy inmates often include many tourist anglers from overseas with huge CV’s in other areas that we are unaware of.  This is one example.  Fly fishing just seems to attract such positive people.  TRM are blessed to share their views.

Anyway, the conceptual basis of our cunning strategy was to exploit their reputation to expose all the false news bouncing around the internet and newspapers damaging our valuable world-wide reputation regarding the condition of our local rivers.  After reading all the misleading bad news sensation type articles in overseas newspapers like the Guardian “rubbishing” all NZ rivers claimed to be poisoned by 1080 or polluted from dirty dairying or dried up from irrigation, we asked for help.  I imagined the Council would rush in to protect their reputation?  Nope – not interested.  

TRM struggles to understand this.  Tourism is the biggest “industry” in NZ.  In tourist towns like Taupo it is even more important.  But in Turangi it is the only industry keeping the town alive.  So one might imagine Toe-paw Council or the Taupo Fishery Managers might be interested in protecting all their $$$ promotion and reputation to correct any misinterpretations of our local environment?.  
TRM were motivated after we had received several email inquiries from prospective tourist anglers asking if the NZ wide pollution had affected the fishing in the Tongariro?  

Accordingly we begged the fishing clubs or Fishery Managers or Toe-paw Council to respond to correct the misleading statements.  
Kiwi readers and anglers might understand the purposely composed bad news was more about marketing strategy to sell more newspapers, than trying to provide a balanced view.  In the vacuum of nil response TRM have had to try to concoct our own response.  Toe-paw Council dodged their responsibility suggesting it would be better to come from us than them (?) as they would be interpreted as being biased, as TRM posts are always squeaky clean?  They advised they cannot prepare any such simple promotional videos as efficiently as TRM’s video marketing department as it takes too much time to gain approval from local Maori?  How extraordinary!.  We only needed SWMBO’s approval of our budget – $nil!

So we asked for help from a few inmates – anglers from overseas who were already aware of the negative publicity – to comment.  While all NZ is gripped in a frenzy of World Cup Fever this is an ideal “marketing opportunity” to introduce a new inmate.  Raphael Ibanez is to France what Richie McCaw is to NZ.  True.  So with his approval, we apologise in having to use his reputation to try correct false impressions on the state of our rivers on the central plateau.  

Just so you understand where TRM are coming from…  We emphasise the sad reality is that the protection of the “100% pure” image should come from Council agencies or Government tourist offices or fishery managers, but we received no response.  So we picked on Raphael and a couple of other experienced Australian inmates, Paul and Brian, who were aware of the bad press and just happened to be staying at TRM at the time, to try to achieve more impact on social media. The Council should be paying them!

Back to Raphael.  How is this for a CV?  Having played in three world cups, with 72 caps for France, 27 as Captain, he initially retired in 2003 to play for London Clubs, Saracens and Wasps, but was lured back to captain the French team to beat the AB’s in the quarter-final in 2007. After adding a further 26 caps – 15 as captain, Raphael was forced into retirement again through injury – finishing on 98 caps ! He then went on to coaching and is now appointed as the French Manager after the 2019 Rugby World Cup.  Wow!  Just another typical laid back TRM fishy inmate…  Most significantly, he loves fly fishing and came to NZ on a secret mission to fish the mighty Tongariro which he talks about on the video.

 A special thanks to another fishy inmate, Mark Tomsett, for bringing him to the Tongariro and for taking the action-on-the-river images.

Throughout 2019 several articles have featured in UK news re pollution of NZ rivers, etc.  i.e.
‘Under serious threat’: New Zealand vows to clean up its …https://www.theguardian.com › world › sep › under-serious-threat-new-zea…Sep 5, 2019 – Declining water quality has coincided with a boom in New Zealand’s dairy industry, the biggest exporter …

‘Their birthright is being lost’: New Zealanders fret over …https://www.theguardian.com › environment › mar › their-birthright-is-bei…Mar 4, 2019 – Dairy boom has coincided with decline in water quality, leaving …

Water pollution the number one concern for New … – Stuff.co.nzhttps://www.stuff.co.nz › environment › water-pollution-the-number-one-co…Jan 2, 2019 – A new opinion poll has revealed pollution in New Zealand’s rivers and lakes is worrying Kiwis more than any other issue. The nation-wide …

The public relations war over freshwater has re … – Stuff.co.nzhttps://www.stuff.co.nz › environment › the-public-relations-war-over-fresh…Jan 29, 2019 – Swim Fresh fleetingly acknowledged concerns about water quality, but never in a …