Ranger’s Collection Of Fish-Poaching Gear

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29067, 2 December 1959, Page 9

Ranger’s Collection Of Fish-Poaching Gear

Th« Press' Special Service

ROTORUA, November 30. The collection of fish poaching Implements kept by Mr H. F. Hamlett at his home in Lynmore, Rotorua, would arouse a gleam in the eye of anyone with leanings toward illicit trout, but not if he knew how much the use of these weapons has cost their owners in fines. Mr Hamlett is a ranger of the Department of Internal Affairs, and his collection includes implements confiscated from poachers over the last seven years. Spears, gaffs and pitchforks form the chief part of the collection. Garden forks, sometimes with the prongs bent closer together, are common, while there are also a shovel, a hoe and a slasher. Some spears show great care in the making, with the barbs machine-ground and the whole weapon carefully finished. Most tonsist of a wooden shaft often y /’d with a trident. Some shafts ne very long, for reaching into deep holes and spearing fish where there are high banks to a stream. One or two spears are merely lengths of wood sharpened to a point. Others are makeshift affairs, with prongs lashed insecurely to the shaft. Gaffs and Nets Gaffs vary from professional to amateur standards. One or two carry wickedly barbed hooks, others are just lengths of fencing wire bent around at the end and sharpened to a point. Wire nets are also used. Some of the most elaborate blocked an entire small stream while the poachers chased the fish up into the trap. To add variety, there is an arrow of fencing wire, notched at one end and filed to a barb at the other. This, fired from a willow bough, was used on big, lazy brown trout in shallow water.

Mr Hamlett says poaching in the streams flowing into Lake Rotorua is rife during the offseason. “I would say definitely that as many fish are taken illegally during this period as by legitimate anglers during the season.”

Although some poachers operated in daylight, most were on the job during darkness, mainly in

the very early morning, he said. He showed a poaching lamp, a tin with a wire handle which, when stuffed with sacking and soaked in kerosene or petrol would burn with a soft light for hours.

tt is getting more and more difficult now to apprehend them, as most post look-outs,” said Mr Hamlett, “Also, in the heat of the moment, I have had poachers swing a gaff or spear at me in their attempts to get away.” But the rangers are alert and manage to keep up with any new tricks used by the poachers. With the increasing fines being imposed by the Courts it seems that poaching fish is now by no means a profitable business.