FISHING NOTES

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21133, 7 April 1934, Page 7

FISHING NOTES

j ANCIENT FLY FISHING ! [Bt BLACK GNAT.) I These Notre, which mo l..v n. fishr.iman of ion; rxperienco and <-on3idri!ibU: theoretical knowledge, v ill uppuor cv«iy Saturdriv. Letters crintainms nmvs items or questions, and addipaaed "Black final," care of tlio I/.ditor ol "The I'n-.w," will renive prompt nttention each v-eck. I "I have heard this account of a mode of fishing in Macedonia. In a river called Astraeus which flows between Beraea and Thessalonica are found fish marked with various colours (spotted trout). These feed upon flies that play upon the water which are unlike other flies—differing from bees, wasps, or hornets, but of a distinct species. These, as they sport on the surface, the fish see, and moving slyly through the water till they get under the insect, leap upon it as a wolf upon a sheep in a flock, or an eagle on a flock of geese, and seizing their prey sink again into the deep water. This the fishermen observed, but could not use them for bait as I when caught in the hand the flics : lost their colours and their wings. , for which cause the fishermen hated j them 'the fish glutting themselves upon the bait which the anglers knew not how to use). But in process of time, as angling science advanced, they learned' to outwit the fish by their ingenuity. They first wrapped around their hook some Phoenician wool and then tied in two feathers in the wattles of a cock's neck of a wax colour. This they threw with a pole or reed four cubits long and a line of the same length. These cunning artifices they threw in the water and the fish, attracted by the appearance of the pretty insect they feed upon, seized the bait and were caught." So runs an early fish eulturalist's translation of a section of Aelian's History of Animals written in A.D. 230. Yet one still from time to time meets anglers who consider dry fly fishing a fairly new form of angling, and one not yet sufficiently well tried to merit general acceptance. With the exception of two Rakaia salmon fishermen, few anglers have rci ported good fishing over Easter. Generally salmon have provi.eri little sport, and one angler's estimate of one salmon a day for a dozen rods is probably a generous estimate of captures. * * * Lake fishing also has proved disappointing, and those who have taken a fish a day jn lakes other than in the Lake Sumner district, have done better than most. Recent visitors to Lake Lyndon, who report nothing but smalt fish there, complain of the activities of poachers there. One angler, fishing with a wet fly, pulled up a length of cod line with numerous hooks baited with wetas attached to it. Another angler disturbed a party who appeared' to be operating a net under cover of darkness. Good trout fishing is at present obtainable in fhe lower reaches of the Sclwyn. and also in the south branch of the Waimakariri. behind the Belfast Hotel.