GOING FISHING with Kotare

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33519, 27 April 1974, Page 11

GOING FISHING with Kotare

Do they fish, like us, in Russia now? It seems they don’t, or that sport-fishing information is classified. Ever since I first met Sergei Aksakov, I’ve wondered about angling in Russia. Arthur Ransome, author of evergreen children’s books, introduced me to the Russian fisherman Aksakov in the latter part of a book he wrote called “Rod and Line.” Among other things, Ransome was an angler who enjoyed writing —or perhaps primarily a writer who enjoyed angling. It doesn’t matter which. Articles collected What does matter to anglers is that he contributed a fishing column to the “Guardian,” Manchester, and that 50 of his articles were collected together with previously unpublished material about Sergei Aksakov, and issued in book form under the title “Rod and Line." Like so many of the more worth-while fishing books it is hard to come by nowadays, but copies are available through our public library service. As well as thoughtful, humorous and helpful articles about angling, much-travelled Arthur Ransome contributed in his book what is almost certainly the first appreciation by a Western angler of a Russian author’s devotion to angling. In a foreword, Arthur Ransome says that in the book ”... I keep a promise made on a lake in Russia long ago that I would some day try to share with other English fishermen the very great

pleasure 1 have been given by the first and most delightful of Russian writers on fishing.” Arthur Ransome, who translated passages on fishing from Aksakov’s fascinating memoirs, reveals a Russian child completely enchanted by angling. But that was a long time ago. So when a publicity handout, apparently about fishing, came my way from the Russian Embassy the other day, I settled down to it with some interest. Would it bridge the gap between Aksakov and present-day anglers in Russia? It was headed ‘‘Rainbow Trout.” The writer began as though Russia and he had an inferiority complex. “New Zealand is not the only country known for its rainbow trout,” he said, “there are about 10 fisheries in the Transcarpathian region (the Ukraine) raising mountain trout.” Fine, I thought, wondering if fly-only, worm, spoon, gaff, size-limit, close season and other regulations were in force. One of the biggest fisheries, I learned, is in the Zhdimr area, near the town of Svalyav. Industrial basis "Fish is raised here on an industrial basis. About 4000 female trout, each providing 4000 to 5000 ova annually, live in special ponds. The ova are placed in incubators with the purest flowing mountain water, enriched with oxygen and of a stabilised temperature. “After 40 to 45 days of incubation the fry are

placed in water tanks, and at the age of two months they are released into ponds for further growth. The average weight of a trout at the end of its time here is 120 to 125 grammes. “In comparison with the brook trout the rainbow type grows twice as fast, without losing anything in taste. “However, the Transcarpathian fish breeders do not ignore the brook trout, some 50,000 fry annually are released into mountain streams. “Much of the fry is also sent to other republics. The fisheries of Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have received millions of fry this year from Transcarpathia. Fisheries expanding “The trout fisheries of Transcarpathia are steadily expanding. The capacities of the biggest of them ... are expected to be doubled in the next few years, and the construction of another fishery is to begin soon. “By 1975 more than 1.2 million tons of fish is expected to be obtained annually in internal waters.” You know, I don’t think I would have distributed that publicity handout in New Zealand. I think it’s all about trout-farming. Perhaps the brook trout isn’t farmed, in view of the ". . . 50,000 fry annually . . . released into mountain streams,” unless they’re the left-overs, so to speak. But maybe, thinking of Sergei Aksakov, I’d drawn the wrong conclusions from the article. I would write to the Russian

Embassy for Russian sport-fishing information. “Are the trout bred—or perhaps fanned would be a better word—for direct purchase as food in some cases?” I asked. “Are they fished for in ways familiar to us in New Zealand? Can they be netted from the streams in which some of them are released? What are the most popular methods used by anglers? Is fly-fishing practised?” I don’t think the man who replied to my letter is an angler. If he knows the name of Sergei Aksakov at all, he may well place more importance on the circumstances of Sergei’s family than on the boy’s love of fishing. The Aksakovs were big land-owners. They were, significantly, big serfowners, too. When, under Pugathchev, who raised the poor against the rich in 1773, the Aksakovs fled, it was only for a short time. Pugatchev was captured, taken in a cage to Moscow, tortured and killed. Whereupon the Aksakovs returned to their estates. Anyway, the man from the Embassy wrote: “We very much appreciate your interest in fishing in our country but much to our regret we do not dispose of the information you are interested in.” Oh well. Maybe sportfishing is just another of those decadent, reactionary, retrogressive Western pursuits that have no place in the lives of the Russian people. Not one little modem Aksakov, with a bent pin and a tin of worms, anywhere?