The Tongariro River By Nick Fisher
M
an has mucked about with Nature all over the world. And most of the time we’ve made a right dog’s dinner of it. We fiddle around with the finely tuned instrument of elements and turn a beautiful harmony into a nightmarish wail. But in the lakes and rivers of New Zealand, for once we got it right. Before we came along, the vast deep volcanic lake of Taupo and the thundering rush of the Tongariro river were virtually fishless. From them we created a true Temple of Sport. Onto a bare canvas, we accidentally painted a masterpiece. Before the late 19th century, the freshwaters of New Zealand were a sad place, with nothing but eels, whitebait and a couple of species of ugly rock fish. In their hunger for colonisation, the British saw fit, not only to send human envoys off to lay claim to far-flung territories, we also sent our fine, feisty, spotted trout too. The first consignment of brown trout to arrive in New Zealand came from England, via Tasmania. By
40 The Marshwood Vale Magazine February 2021 Tel. 01308 423031
1916, it was estimated that over 50 million finger-sized trout had been released, haphazardly, into various streams around the North and South islands. Trout loved New Zealand. They went mad for it. They bred rampantly and grew like mutant monsters, reaching sizes undreamt of, even in the wild nocturnal duvet-stirrings of English fly-fishing fanatics. Some trout even took it on themselves to swim out to sea, and round the coast to seed new rivers. New Zealand rapidly developed some of the most heart-stopping fly-fishing water in the world. And consequently established a vital high-protein food source for settlers and native Maoris alike. If you want to eat trout in New Zealand though, you’ve got to catch it yourself. As a way of preserving any poaching or misuse of this silver gleaming asset, the government declared it illegal to buy or sell salmon trutta. And if you’re going to catch trout in New Zealand, the Tongariro river isn’t the easiest place to start but it’s
