Taupo Revisited (briefly)

I have just returned from a 3 week visit to New Zealand. The occasion was to celebrate my birthday with family. I have now joined the 80's Club which dosen't please me much. My son Jonathan took a week off work and drove me around the North Island to visit rellies and places of interest. I had a District fishing license and had a go at Lake Pupuke, Ohinemuri, Mangatainoka and Akatarawa Rivers which I was familiar from the distant past.

We drove from Whakatane to Palmerston North in one day (ca 500 kms)and took fotos on the way, passing/stopping at Taupo and Turangi, and noting the state of the fishing, but not fishing as a special Taupo License is required. We had a rest stop at the parking lot by the bridge over the Waitahanui River. Two guys were casting at the bridge and 100 metres further down at the mouth in the lake were a couple of anglers fishing the delta. Good luck to them. Nothing was being caught. I have always avoided fishing the deltas of Taupo rivers since it really is a game of Russian roulette. Sooner or later there is a submarine landslide of loose pumice sands, maybe caused by an earth tremor, and anglers in waders can disappear for good to a watery grave. I used to stick to the safer consolidated gravel beds of the rivers.

At the main road bridge over the Tongariro River there was a lone angler fishing downstream close to the bridge. We stopped at the swing foot bridge and at the Hydro Pool but there were no anglers visible from the Hydro down to the Major Jones Pool (Tuesday, 3 pm, 13 May 2014), so we concluded there were few fish in the river, although we did spot one hiding amongst the boulders below the swing bridge.

The Tongariro water level must be higher than normal,(by two feet?) as there was no shingle beach at the Hydro Pool, and I doubt that you could have fished from the ledge on the far bank, it being submerged. The huge boulder that used to be on the far side is gone, it being swept away by a past flood. Surely someone has spotted it downstream some wheres? The Tongariro River is as beautiful and challenging for anglers as ever but now I leave it for more agile people to explore and enjoy. Foto is from the swing foot bridge looking down stream to the Major Jones Pool.