Salmon farm’s faith returns as anglers’ boon

Press, 19 March 1984, Page 1

Salmon farm’s faith returns as anglers’ boon

By BARRY SIMPSON, Nelson reporter

Salmon have been running in the Takaka River and Pupu Stream for more than two weeks now, bringing smiles to the face of Mr Clive Barker and money to the Nelson Acclimatisation Society and sports goods proprietors in Takaka. Mr Barker, a partner in the Bubbling Springs salmon farm, sees the run as vindication of his faith in the enterprise, and is now preparing for the next stage of the venture which has seen many hundreds of thousands of young salmon turned out of the farm into the Tasman.

The run, of two-year male fish, began in the Takaka River about the beginning of the month. A few fish were caught also in the Pupu Stream, into which the farm has its outlet. Several hundred fish were reported by skin-divers to be in both streams in the first two weeks, and one angler, Mr Gordon Ross, of Onekaka, reeled in 10 for a limit bag in 90 minutes.

News of the run sent would-be salmon fishermen streaming into the stores in Takaka that sell fishing licences, and it was reported that in two days 120 licences, valued at some $2400, were sold. One sports shop also reported having sold out of lures and other gear.

This has brought a wry grin to the face of Mr Barker. He has always maintained that the anglers would get “first crack” at the salmon returning to the farm, but sceptics, some of them in places of authority, have decried his claims,

insisting that the object of the farm was to rear fish to pan size for sale commercially. Certainly, this has been done, for what Mr Barker says was the very good reason that until the fish began to come back to make the venture pay, some return on the huge capital outlay had to be received. During its 12-year history there has been, as one senior fisheries officer put it, a lot of “aggro” between the proprietors of the farm (as represented by Mr Barker) and. angling organisations (notably the Nelson Acclimatisation Society). To be fair, there have been faults ■on both sides and an antagonism has grown which, as yet, shows little signs of abating.

The bureaucrats, too, have not made life too easy for the salmon venture, but only because the wheels of bureaucracy turn so slowly. An example of this is the farm’s application for an ocean ranching licence, essential now that fish are returning. The application was made last December. It is still being processed, was said to be in the hands of the Minister (Mr MacIntyre), and should be available soon.

The news is not quite so good for the farm from the Acclimatisation Society. In June last year, Mr Barker sought from the society the necessary permission to extend his recapture site for returning adult salmon to a point a little above the confluence of the Pupu Stream with the Takaka River (about 400 m from the farm outlet). Mr Barker’s submission

was that the outlet, at an oblique angle to the stream, was so placed (under official direction) that the returning fish could miss it.

The Acclimatisation Society refused the concession on the ground that it would mean shutting off a large part of the stream to anglers — on the face of it, a reasonable objection.

Mr Barker said that he thought from the latest amendments to the regulations that, under regulation 19, he should be able to nominate where in the river he wanted to catch the returning fish. “The Government is hedging on it and the society won’t wear it, but unless we can catch our fish — and these are our fish that we raised from eggs — in our hatchery stream and after the fishermen have had the initial go at them, we are wasting our time,” he said. He pointed to other companies — the New Zealand

Salmon Company and the Hurunui company — being allowed to catch in their hatchery streams. Mr Barker says the anglers have all the Takaka River up to the confluence with the Pupu Stream to have “first crack” at the salmon. Virtually all fish taken on the rod so far have been caught in this area. The Pupu Stream, a very swift-flowing and, for the most part, shallow river carrying the waters of the famous Pupu Springs, is entirely unsuited to spawning because of a lack of suitable shingle beds, according to Mr Barker. “If the females returning to spawn cannot find a spawning ground and bypass our outlet, they will drop their eggs anyway. These will be unfertilised and the anglers and the farm will lose future generations of fish,” he said. This was in part supported by Mr Robert

McDowall, assistant director of freshwater fisheries research of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Christchurch. “It could well be true that this river has no spawning grounds. They certainly need correct gravels for spawning,” he said.

Of the fish reported to be moving up the Takaka River and Pupu Stream, only about 25 to 30 have returned to the farm raceways. These are all twoyear, precocious males. The hen fish, at three years old, do not start to return until next year. The Pupu Stream has long been a favourite with skin-divers. They were out in force a week ago. One, carrying a spear gun, was surprised by a fishing party which, possibly because of the activities of the divers, were unable to entice even one of the reported hundreds of salmon in the river on to their hooks.