GOING FISHING with Kotare

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 11

GOING FISHING with Kotare

It’s just as well for the environmentalists that we don’t have scores of different species of freshwater fish.

Having reached our particular rung on the ladder of materialism, we would be ready to start dumping our larger rubbish in convenient lakes to improve fish-habitat. For it seems that freshwater fish species are just as ready as marine species to build new communities in and around old tyres, trams, Christmas trees, vitrified clay pipes, old boats, and the inevitable collection of outmoded cars.

I’m assuming that the environmentalists in question are as concerned about the underwater environment as the visible one above it.

But, where fish-habitat is important to establish, it would seem that the environmentalists overseas are well-adjusted to the visual pollution that increasing numbers of skin-divers must be faced with* in fresh and salt waters the work! over. And when you delve into current fisheries practices, you discover that, after all, most marine and freshwater biologists. who would include some of the more militant environmentalists of our time, are all for the deliberate “pollution” of fish habitat with certain kinds of mankind s rubbish. Car tyres Old car tyres are the most popular item. Tyres

were mentioned more often than any other rubbish at a first-ever international conference on artificial reefs held recently at Houston, Texas.

It attracted no fewer than 280 . delegates from Puerto Rico, the Virgin islands, Eniwetok, Guam, all 26 coastal states of the Unites States, Australia, France, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Roughly speaking, reefs, whether natural or artificial, provide cover for fish. Marine plants flourish there. Holes and corners offer protection for many species of young fish. Over the years, fishermen have come to know that the fishtng over or close to natural reefs is normally very much better than the fishing m reef-less places. So it was inevitable that artificial reefs would eventually be established, initially to improve the catch of commercial fishermen, and later in some places, to lift the quality of sport-fishing. reefs I used to believe that the construction erf artificial reefs only began when the results o ( builtin obsolescence began to embarrass the United States’ automobile industry. Not so. According to a Japanese speaker. Takasho lao, at the Houston conference, Japan has been building artificial reefs since 1794. Currently, however, he said, Japanese fishermen were using sandbags, natural rocks, old fishing vessels, used

tyres, old buses and trolley cars, and concrete and iron structures, for the same purpose. He said that a national project begun in 1954 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s Fisheries Agency had involived the use of moer than a million concrete blocks. Sunk al some 4000 locations in fishing grounds, six to 120 metres deep, the artificial reefs so formed were providing good fishing for hook and line or urse seine. The areas were nursery grounds for a variety of young fish, and made suitable habitat for octopus, sea-cucumbers, lobsters, abalones, and topshells;' Inland water* Many other delegates at the conference s-poke of their experiences with artificial-reef construction off the coasts of their countries. Without exception, all reefs were fulfilling their functions admirably. But the use of artificial reefs is not confined to the salt waters of the world. Mr Joseph E. Crumpton, of the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Cocamission, spoke at the conference of the effects of fish attractors placed in inland waters.

Twelve attractors and six control sites, he said, had been studied in Lal.e Tohopekaliga since their construction in the summer of 1970. In 66 additional attractors in lakes throughout Florida, old automobile tyres and brush had been the materials most often used.

Sampling with electrofishmg gear had indicated that al! 12 fish attractors in Lake T ohopekaliga were .veil colonised by bluegills and white catfish. Creel surveys conducted there had shown that catch rates for largemouth bass, black crappies. and sunfish, were frequently higher than those experienced elsewhere in the lake. Car bodies Expert angler evaluations of 17 attractors in four lakes had all provided da:a showing great er fishing potential at attractors than at control sites and other areas of the lake. Is this what New Zealand has been waiting for? We hear we’ve reached the stage of cardisposal problems, that thousands and thousands of old tyres must be burned or buried each year.

On the other hand, our off-shore fishing is said to be deteriorating. Some say even our lake-fishing is going downhill. Maybe we could save a few millions on recycling machinery by dumping our old automotive rubbish at sea —- and give our fishing industry a shot in the arm.

I’m not so sure about our inland waters. Would old car bodies and used

tyres attract young trout? Some of the superheavy gear used by trailers might lose its appeal after the first old cock-abully-filled Mini was brought to the net . . .