The Taniwha Pool - Taupo river

trout fish

Now and then I come across water that fills me with awe. Lake Coleridge in the steely light before darkness is one. The Taniwha Pool is another.

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This is situated on one of the Taupo rivers, well above the bush line. Phil had taken his cousin Antony and me as far as he could on the four-wheel-drive track, before cutting through the bush on the way to a bivvy we'd heard about.

He stirred up a wasp nest on his way down a slope, and Antony got stung in the head.

“It's usually the person following who gets stung,” said Phil. If Antony appreciated this observation he gave no sign of it. He was still feeling sore by the time we found the bivvy.

After a hot drink we eased down the steep drop to the river. Afternoon plans were straightforward: I would fish downriver while the other two went hunting. Downriver because a waterfall blocked progress upstream.

The river was very clear and flowed between steep banks, making it difficult to conceal my presence from pods of beady-eyed rainbow trout. The river is unspoilt and beautiful up there. I climbed into the bush to avoid spooking fish in a long green pool. The bedrock showing above the surface of the far bank was clean for a foot or two then green with moss. The green continued into the ferns and beeches. Rainbow trout were visible as dull shapes over pale green shingle bordering the bedrock.

I dropped to the tail and placed a size 10 Pheasant and Hare in tandem with a small Globug into the flow. When the line stopped I hooked, played and was delighted to land a four-pound silver jack, my first for this river. It was March, so the fish might have been an earlier spawner, even though it had ignored a Globug in favour of a Pheasant and Hare. I continued downstream feeling a tad more dangerous than before.

Rigged up with two Pheasant and Hares (a #10 and a 12), I caught and released a three-pound rainbow in a deep pool against a greywacke bank. Further downstream I presented my nymphs in a space between large rocks where I'd seen a rise. When I saw a fish power upstream I assumed it had taken my fly and struck.
A good call as it turned out. The line followed, the trout on the other end negotiating the rocks with skill. Then it jumped to show me how big it was, dragged the leader around a rock and broke off.

Big rocks can also be an advantage in a clear river such as this, providing cover for the angler and a sense of security for the fish. I cast to a trout sitting in a lie bordered by such rocks. I had to guess when to strike, but got it right.

This fish also got it right when it rocked me upstream but got it wrong when it swam back the way it had come. I could see it was foul hooked in the tail as well as being in the mouth, and had to drag it against the current until I could grab the leader above the fish's mouth to lead it to shore, using my boot to ease it to the side. This o ne was about three pounds.

Further down I encountered really big rocks guarding the entrance to a pool which ran deep, green, and mysterious beneath a bank of striated bedrock overhung by a variety of green plants. The downstream end was straddled by a tree.

After looking for a way through the rocks, I decided it wasn't possible without risk.
I can't remember whether the name ‘Taniwha’ occurred to me then, or the next day. While I don't believe in taniwhas, I concede that they might have entered Maori mythology because of the sighting of a stray dinosaur. This pool was so secluded, and so terribly beautiful that taniwha seemed the right name for it – just the place for a riverine plesiosaur to emerge from the depths with a rainbow flapping in its jaws.

Back at the top of the cliff I lost the plot and had to yell out to the others for directions to the bivvy. Soon we were debriefing their fruitless hunt and my fruitful afternoon.

After downing a venison stew we settled for the night, but not for long. I don't remember whether we first left the unwashed pots outside, then brought them in, or vice versa, but the effect was to get a possum inside the bivvy.

When the torches went on, it couldn't see how to get out, racing round and around in a frantic attempt to escape – which wasn't the first time I'd seen a possum confused by the light. Once, Damien Straw and I were returning to Hari Hari after fishing in Central Otago, scaring roadside possums by blasting them with the horn. One poor beast made for a nearby lamp post, only to find it was moving. Or so it seemed. So it made for the middle of the road, only to get a tyre mark down its middle.
Antony somehow got the possum into a deep and sheer-sided rubbish pit, returning to declare how he’d despatched it with a powerful blow. Suitably impressed we settled down, Antony telling us about the occasion a weta had crawled through a window into his sleeping bag, and bitten him. With my mattress on mother earth, I didn't want to know a bout it.

Next day, a rubbish pit empty of possums, dead or alive, cast doubts on the credibility of Antony's testimony. Maybe it was an attempt to restore his credibility that was behind his Tarzan-like leap into the pool at the base of the cliff. Perhaps he imagined himself leaping in and frolicking like a porpoise before sprawling on a sun-warmed rock, water running off gleaming abs.

Instead, the story was he came out as quickly as he went in – very subdued, very cold, and feeling marginally androgynous.

The fishing wasn't as good as the previous day. Maybe because of the 60 or 70 rainbows that had already seen my anxious face the previous day. Presently the Taniwha Pool came into view. It didn't take long for Phil to suss out a way through the masonry. By careful placement of hands and feet we negotiated a squeeze between two large rocks.

Now we'd reached this pool, how were we to fish it? A pod of rainbows were holding just above the bottom, but they were a long way down. The current was slow and variable. We attached a couple of heavy nymphs and cast hopefully. Without an indicator to prevent it, the tip of the floating line sank in a broad arc. The sun's rays made the pool glow emerald. What a setting for something amazing to happen – something to challenge my theory of nymphing. It happened when I lifted the line and encountered resistance.

It wasn't a snag but the kind of movement caused by a shaking head and thrusting tail. I've noticed deep lying rainbows seem to show a mistaken sense of security when it comes to sampling nymphs. The challenge is to present the nymphs in a natural manner at the right depth. Also knowing when to strike.

Sometimes the cues are so subtle that afterwards you can't properly remember what made you strike. But I had no real evidence that the trout had taken, unless it was the curve in the line. At four pounds, this was the heaviest fish so far.

When the same thing happened to Phil, I began to wonder whether we'd stum bled on a new technique. He gave the rod to Antony who lost the trout when it ran the log end of the pool. Phil and I hooked another fish each, losing them when they also ran below the log.

We had to leave the pool while it was hot as we had a schedule to keep. The experience is worthy of thought. I've watched the Hatchery Stream rainbows on the feed. They close their mouths on a possible food source for about a second. Maybe that's because they're so close to the surface. Perhaps when they're on the bottom they h ang onto the nymph for longer. Perhaps some cue did let us know the nymph had been taken; or maybe the weight of the sunken floating line in the current had already hooked them. Perhaps.

I don't know whether I'll get another chance to visit the River Beautiful.
We take up residence in Canterbury in a week’s time. But I hope that Phil and Charles take the time to walk down to the Taniwha Pool next time they're there. They might come up with a theory of their own.

And they could keep an eye out for a stray dinosaur.

 

A Blast From The Past!

 

August 1998 - by Adrian Bell
This article was originally suppled by
NZ Fisherman Magazine

and reviewed for Fishing.net.nz
2013 by John Eichelsheim
      Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited         

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