GREY'S TOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1926, Page 8

GREY'S TOUR.

TRYING: OUT • OUR"* GROUNDS.' •■ * ■ | SWORDFISH AND TROUT. •— j • APOSTLE OF THE" OPEN ;AIR.' j Anyone . who . thinks , that_ Mr. .Zane Grey is an ordinary fish slaughterer makes a big mistake-, with him the fishing is merely an incident, and as a matter of fact • some of his best days • have been when he has not .got a fish, at j all. Ever since he was a very small boy ' he has felt the call of the open, and it is the open that he -gets his inspiration from. His. inspiring stories of brave men and good women never smack of the midnight oil. There is nothing of the artificial about his swinging pages. He told a "Star" reporter this morning that he haunted the desert and the sea for the good of his soul, and felt that they were essential for his development. A man, he said, must grow; he could not stand still; and to him the great open spaces were essential. As his myriads of readers well know, Mr. Grey is no spoil. sport, but he has some charming "old world" ideas about! chivalry and the charm of the old-' fashioned womanly woman. Smoking' and cocktails for women make him squirm, and while he does not object to the bobbed hair for the young flappers, I he does not like to see the grannies with ■ their hair cut short and the backs of their necks shaved. Certain phases of the "movies" and the spread of the motor-car are responsible for much of; the amazing change that has come over j the young people of to-day, thinks Mr.' Grey, and, while he does not despair, j he wonders, rather, where it is all going to end. I While he does not despair of the' future, Mr. Grey says i the present mode of life makes him wonder what it is all' going to lead to. He was speaking more particularly of the younger generation, j To judge from some, of .the views of' Mr. Grey that have "appeared in print,"'; one would take him to be a bit of a . literary swashbuckler, with a. pen in one hand and a gaff in the other, but all this talk about fishing is merely mci- j dental. Zane Grey takes life seriously, and he has some very fine ideals, for which he is quite ready to make sacrifices. He is the great apostle of the open air, and in these days of hectic bustle and living generally nothing would be better for mankind if it could get some of the peace of' soul which comes from communing with the open j spaces. I Now it so happens that his love of the sea has led Zane Grey to study the; things that live in it, and he can tell ! you at a glance the name and. nature of anything alive that comes to-the. surface or shows itself. All the big fishing cen-1 tres of the United States .were pioneered by Mr. Grey, and now he has come to New Zealand to. make comparisons. As he says, the only way to compare grounds is to use the same methods, and he is convinced that the fishing that has, hitherto been done in New Zealand has not been done on. the lines that have been proved in the States as the result of years of experience to be the best for taking these big sea fish. , I Convinced that the tackle that has hitherto been used in New Zealand was; not the best that could be evolved, Mr. i Grey has brought his own gear, that | has been proved on famous grounds •in i the States. His party and that of Mr. j C. Alma Baker go up to Russell'immedi-1 ately, and from there will work down to! Mercury Bay and .probably Mayor Island. He is making a point of being; back in Auckland on March 5 to see the screening of his story "Wild Horse! Mesa," a favourite with; him. Then he 1 will go down to Taupo and fish some of the famous trout streams flowing into that lake. Putting the matter in a nutshell, the difference between the methods of Mr. Grey and the anglers with whom we are already familiar in New Zealand seems to be that while our people arc content to wait for the fish, Mr.. Grey, and his. school go and stir up the fish. There arc certain methods of raising the fish that have not so far been understood in NeAv Zealand, and. as Mr. Grey explained, some of the very best days for fishing are when you won't see a fish at all—when the fish have to be sought out and raised. Then, again, these super-Tzaac Waltons go anything v pto 100 miles off the coast after their quarry. How far did he intend to go at Russell? Mr. 'Grey was askpd. and he replied that he intended to go just as far as the launchmen would take him. One point Mr. Grey wants to correct, and that is any suero'estion that he has come to teach the New Zealand fishermen. All he intends doing is to demonstrate the .American methods, and then if our fishermen like them they can adopt them. An impression has gone abroad that the noted author-fisherman is the guest of the Government. That is not so. WWhile he is thoroughly grateful for the Government's welcome and hospiESlitr. he i= travelling as an independent tourist, and i« seeing the country in his own wav at his own esnense. • J ' Mr. Grey admitted that he hoped to nick up enough local colour and incident in the backbloeks to write a book with a New Zealand setting. • . . i