FISHING IN NEW ZEALAND

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 84, 7 January 1928, Page 22

FISHING IN NEW ZEALAND

AN ENTICING BOOK FOR ANGLERS

Followers of the rod and line will be disturbed by “Rod Fishing in New Zealand Waters.” It does not matter how far away they may be at the time they .will surely want to be in the Dominion •njoying the glorious sport that the book describes. It is not a romance. It is a straightforward uncoloured account of the fishing waters of New Zealand from the pen of Captain T. B. Donne, C.M.G., who ought to know the facts, and administered the Government cramp and fishing' districts, exfeuding from Lakes Rotorua and Taupo to Waikaremoana and the Bay of Plenty. New Zealand is indeed the. "fisherman’s paradise, with its teeming lakes, rivers, and seas.” ■. The reason given is that there is a plentiful supply of food, and, excepting, at .the spawning period, no serious interruption to feeding. And all this has happened since the early ’sixties, when the first ova were imported from Britain and Germany. Since then salmon and herring have been introduced, and apparently with almost the same' remarkable success. . The - author, indeed, suggests quite • seriously that the time has come for New Zea- ■ land to reverse the process and send ' ova of her virile brown 'and Loch Levcn trout to the Mother Country. As for the Dominion importing tinned salmon, lobster, herrings., and sardines, he is definitely- of opinion that such importations of canned fish should be “a matter of history before long.” Speaking of the exceptional size to which New Zealand fish grow on account of "the suitability of the clean, odd water, and abundance of aquatic insect fauna,” he recals a gain of 2|lb. in weight in five months of a rainbow trout released in the River Selwyn. While on the subject of big fish, he says that the largest ; known was a brown trout taken on a spinning minnow from the beach at Lake Wakatipu. It weighed 3711 b. In one season 56,000 trout were taken from Lake Taupo and its rivers weighing well over 100 tons. At Lake Wakatipu a resident fed his pigs on trout fot . many years, alternating this diet with rabbits ! There are chronides, of course, of exceptional instances. In quite a class of sport by itself is the quest of the famous swordfish, and here again New Zealand is the most favoured of countries. The largest swordfish ever caught in the Northern Hemisphere weighed 70001 b. Last year an Englishman visiting the Bay of Islands landed one which turned the scale at 761 b. after it had disgorged portion of its breakfast, consisting of seven large red schnapper (spelt “snapper” by the author). The rod used was a short one of hickory, with a geared reel on its upper side and 450 yards of fine linen thread line. The swordfish is the champion “lepper.” Who. can doubt it after reading this description of him: —- On occasion he comes out of the water like a bolt from the blue and appears in the air with a long, low leap, covering some 30 or 40 feet, his skin shining in the sunlight like a streak burnished silver. He then makes off at

hurricane speed, gallantly leaping any number of times, up to 17. 30, or even more, and invariably heading northeast.

Often the chase lasts for several hours, during which nearly a score of miles are covered. Because the swordfish is a “fighting gentleman” with a long-ancestry, it is not “tika” (corect) to give him "cold steel, so lie is not .always speared or gaffed. An interesting chapter is that describing the habits of the famous porpoise Pelorus Jack, wl;o was protected by special Act of Parliament at the instance of the author, and there are chapters devoted to other forms of fishing in which New Zealand abounds, including the pursuit of shark and even of whales. Finally, the author provides the intending visitor wjth full instructions as to when to go to New Zealand, how to go, what to wear, and where to stay, and, above all else, what tackle to use. The book contains a number of exceedingly enticing illustrations, and is plenteouslj’ spiced with good fishermen’s yarns.