STROKE HAULING OF SALMON AND TROUT.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20711, 23 November 1932, Page 8

STROKE HAULING OF SALMON AND TROUT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE I'RESS. Sir,—May I be allowed a little space to comment on tho remarks of Mr Stead andr those anglers who have passed opinions regarding stroke hauling of salmon.' It is surely a fact too well known for any dispute that poaching has been going on for years. Could anything else be expected when angling is allowed on any part of our rivers, spawning beds included. Salmon, after entering <i river to spawn, deteriorate in condition very rapidly, and what may have been an excellent food and game fish at the river mouth is usually a sick and poorly-conditioned fish long before the spawning beds are reached. To kill a salmon in the upper reaches of a river is the height of folly, as it is useless for food, and also it is no use expecting our salmon to increase in numbers if they are going to bo killed on the spawning ground. Why not fix a limit for anglers as for net fishermen. Let no angling be allowed above 30 miles from the sea, and provision be made for tho protection of the spawning beds, and I am sure in a few years the salmon will be a big help to New Zealand as a food and game fish. Is it not a fact that the people on the Upper Waitaki take the salmon on the spawning beds there, and salt down a supply of them for the winter? One gentleman from up that way was heard to remark that it was a bother having to kill so many before ho could get enough clean-run fish. Perhaps the stroke-hauler is the worst poacher, but is it fair angling to use a minnow with about five sets of triple hooks, such as is often used by anglers on our rivers? With such an instrument tied to a wire trace, our angler is by way of becoming a good companion "for the stroke-hauler. I would like to point out to Mr Stead that if every licenseholder is a ranger, then many rangers are in the stroke-hauling business, for very few of those wh'i stroke-haul do so without a license. It is surely the business of the Government to look after the protection of the salmon, and not leave it to the various acclimatisation societies' rangers. who have more than they can do m guarding the trout streams and what litle game birds there may be. The Government introduced the salmon here as a food fish, and perhaps if it was treated as a commercial fish to he caught by netting, and not as a game fish it would be far better for everyone, especially for the salmon—Yours, CtC " CHINOOK. Cave, November 21st, 1932.