19/05/2026
With the calm settled weather of late the awa has been a challenge to everyone including myself,you canāt catch fish if they arenāt there, you might pick up the odd one or two if you have the time and patience required to get them, also Iāve noticed the fish have adapted to the amount of pressure that this awa faces the main pools and runs have been bare and they have been hiding in little overlooked runs tight corners and difficult to reach places that pressure i can be partly blamed on myself for with a lot of people especially young keen anglers from all over the country drawn to our awa to test their luck and skill this doesnt bother me at all love to see keen youngsters out and about ive shown over a dozen of them how itās done in the last year alone they have become quite proficient in the art now always on fish,a lot would say Iām shooting myself in the foot creating more competition for prime pools but I know the awa is big as it is wide for someone who learned up the back of Blake road right to the bridgepool there isnt a pool i havent taken fish from and another reason I donāt fish anywhere else i thrive off the challenge of getting good fish from difficult near impossible places against some top tier anglers the more layers of difficulty stacked against me the more I learn how to counter them all just means a little more work a little more thought a little more of everything and all the main characters i always see agree with one thing we need the straight to return i know no one wants to take the responsibility for its demise or the loss of the two lives as a result mercury energy who manages the lake level do the bare minimum to meet the environmental requirements for resource management Tuwharetoa my own tribe have little to say on the matter and are happy to leave it as is the council have there hands tied all because one man a lawyer threatened to sue because his property was being eroded so those rocks were placed there stopped the wave action from pushing the sand back up lake level came right up to its maximum level and came up over the bend and the awa pushed its way straight out to where it is today i saw it happen along with a local legend Alan Tahau not so long after life was lost no one took responsibility could have been another two taken, ive saved one myself from drowning and no one wants to acknowledge the danger the rip now presents instead a sign was erected warning of strong currents, i still donāt know how much time I have left here but before my time is up along with a few other old schoolers wewant to see the straight back, I am also a machine operator and could do it myself if I had a machine I made a weak attempt at it by hand with a couple of cousins that ended up being a reef of rocks instead that has become a popular pool if the straight was restored a lot more water would be available to fish for everyone that is easy to fish instead of the dumping ground for rubbish inconsiderate people leave behind and honestly itās disgusting one day it would take me with a decent machine instead of the ridiculous price of 300k that was quoted by others and I would do it for free, I remember fishing the bridgepool with five others all of us were fighting a fish each,after l landed mine i looked down the straight about thirty people were lined up on one side about the same on the other and every rod along there was bent fighting fish I hope too see that sight one day again
