Mod and Gun.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 47, 23 August 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

Mod and Gun.

[Contributions to this column, addressed "Gamebag," will be welcomed. They should be concise, and must bo signed with the writer's full name and address, not for publication, but as a guarantee of authenticity.!

IBy Qamebao.2 The following letter deals with a subject of such importance that I publish it in full: —

Dear Gamebag — Several paragraphs have appeared in the Post referring to the action of the Pahiatua sub-committee in regard to the Wellington Acolimatisation Society whiob. give a w-rong impression, and as you yourself honoured us with a somewhat lengthy notice under your column of "Rod and Gun," permit me .to give our view of the question. Before doing so, allow me .to state that I have been Secretary of sub-com-mittee for six years, and that I 'have been at considerable pains to collect facts dealing with the history of acclimatisation in this district from tho earliest times down to tho present. On 2nd May, 1888, a preliminary public meeting was held in Pahiatua, at whioh it was decided to form an acclimatisation society to be called "Tho Pahiatua Acclimatisation Society," and a sub-committee consisting of Messrs. Briggs, Wakeman, and Tosswill was nppoiuted to draw up rules and report to a future meeting. On 9th May that meeting took place, at which tho rules as drafted were adopted, and a committee of management was elected, of which Mr. W. Wakeman was Chairman.

Previous to tho formation of this society fry had been sent fiom Masterton to tfiis district, and Mr. W. H. Beelhnm, in a letter dated 18th November, 1889, stated that tho numbers liberated were 6300 salmon, 5100 brown trout, and 350 salmon trout. After tho formation of the society, according to the same letter, 14,000 brown trout and 5000 fontinalis had been liberated. Some of these, as well as some of those above- mentioned, were liberated outside of our district at Eketahuna. In 1889 about 2000 fry were promised, but apparently never came. In a letter dated 4th December, 1889, Mr. Rutherford congratulated the Pahir.lua Society on its w lbilom in amalgamating with tbo Wellington society. Henceforward Pahi'ilua belonged lo the Wellington society district." Best during the eighteen months that it went alone £15 10s had bt-en collected in subscriptions fioin resident*; another sum had baen expended in purchasing and bringing thoso 14,000 brown trouL from Masteitou to the Bush. 1 have before me tho balance-sheet of tho society for tho time it existed, which dhows that £10 wua paid to tho Wellington society for fry, and this amount was acknowledged by two receipts from the Traasuror, Mr. L. G. Roid, one dated 10th June, 1883, for £5, and one dated 18th November, 3889, for a like amount. Brides this £7 2s- od was paid in expenses of transit. This ieft a debit balance of £1 12s 6d, which Mr. W. Tos.-.will paid out of his own pocket. The expenses of transit wero heavy in tho'-e dajs, for tho fi.-h hnd to be carried by road from Mn&terton, forly miles. Over and above the amounts mentioned Mr. To?s\vi!l actually paid, out of his own pocket in evpensiw from £15 to £20 in connection with these early consignments of fay, \for which ho lias no; or been reimbuised. Thus practically £40 was paid by tbu district for less" than 20,000 fry. For the next .thico years my records aro somewhat dim, but apparently the district was not too well satisfied at tho treatment received, for in 1893 there was a talk of "cutting the painter." However, instead of doing co a sub-com-mittee was appointed, and things wont well for a time. There is no means at my disposal for n&cortuining the rovenue from fishing and shooting licenses during these yonrs, but in a letter to the Pahiatua Herald of November, 1893, Mr. Duncan Puekle, Hou. Secretary of the, sub-committee, stated that eleven shooting licenses had been taken out during 1892. This, of coiubo, went to tho Wellington society funds. Tor tho next ten years, the average income from this sourco was £20 odd _per annum, so that, roughly speaking, £200 has boen contributed from shooting licenses alone. The amount of the fishing licenses which I have collected from the annual returns of tho Wellington society und elsewhere is about £100. Thus from tho two sources the revenue from tho Pahiatua County alono has boen about £650. In the earlier yews the cost of liberation was rather high, for tho fry had to bo brought from Eketnhuna by vehicle, 17 miles. But siuce the railway was opened to Pahialua, somo five years, tho expenses in this direction have materially decreased ; for tho last, four years they have amounted to less than £10. So j far, then, about £700 has been raised in this county sinco 1887, which has gone to the Wellington Acclimatisation Society.

Against this amount we have received 768,035 fry of all kinds. In making this calculation I have accepted tho numbers in the Wellington society's annual reports, the accuracy of which is open to doubt, for in one year wo aro credited with 16,000 rainbow, though not a single fry of any kind came. Skill, I have accepted them up till 1896, when I became Secretnry ; but sinco then I have counted the numbers actually received — or rather, I should say, I havo counted the cam and assumed that 2000 fry were in each. Previous to 1896, also, in some cases the numbers include those for Eket*utuia as well as for the Pnhiatua sub-committee, whose district i« the

Pahiatua County only. Accepting allthese a» ours, and 10,000 received this season, the number of fry liberated in this district between 1887 and 7thAugustf 1902, amount to 778,835. Of these bdOO were salmon and 61,000 fontinalis. As neither of these fish have proved a success in the Wellington province they may be deducted from the above total of 778,000, which leaves 711,000 fry, for which wo have paid about £700. Most of these fry were liberated before 1898, for sinco that date, i.e., for four years, we have received only 125,000, an average of a little over 30,000 per annum. These 711,000 fry, then, have been the extent to which our county waters have been stocked. By actual measurement on the map the Pahiatua County contains one hundred miles of rivers, mostly their lower reaches, where they are large. In addition there are streams and creeks, all admirably adapted for fishing, too . numerous not only to measure, but almost to mention. If I gave a list of their names you would be justified, Mr. Gamebag, in refusing to publish tliem as too long. We have, for instance, twelve miles of the Manawatu above the Gorge, for which 711,000 fry spread over, not fifteen years, but even a third of that time, would not be an excessive amount. But our rivers come from beyondi«our boundaries and go beyond them. We are only a small part of the Manawatu basin, and the fry liber* ated by us, being free agents, spread to* other parts. Such being the caae, our allotment is still less excessive.

If the Wellington district be divided into four river basins — namely, the Manawatu, Ruanmhanga, Hutt, and West Coast — by actual measurement on the map it is found that the Manawatu is not only the largest of the four, bub that it is actually larger by a good many square miles than the other three put together. Roughly the Manawatu basin contains 1,500,000 acres, while the other three contain only 1,433,000 acres. According to the annual reports of the Wellington society the fry turned out for nine years into these rivers are: — The Ruamahanga, 766,000; the Hutt, 696,000; the West Cdast, 700,000; and the Manawatu, 1,287,000. Of the latter amount 77,000 were fontinalis. Deducting these, the Manawatu had 1,210,000 good fry, as against 2,161,000 in the other three, i.e., a larger quantity of wat«r fot four-sevenths of the number of fry. 'or the same time there were sold to outsiders over 1,250,000 fry and almost 2,000,000 eyed ova. Not only is the 1,210,000 fry inequitable and inadequate, but some four years ago the streams throughout tho county were almost stripped by terrific bush fires. In one place alone in a pool at the junction of the Mangahao and Manawatu an oye-witness on whose judgment and word I can rely declared that the dead fish were collected in tons. I myself saw them by scores up and down the rivers, and I had reports from all over the county of a like state of things. A similar misfortune happened at Eketahuna a year or two earlier. Since that time wo have cried out continually for fry, but have received only 135,000. We admit that the recent bad seasons at. the Masterton ponds was a melancholy fact to be accepted as such, but when, even in tho two worst seasons, only 10,000 fry came here, the Wellington society sold to outsiders in 1900 and 1901 no les« than 800,000 fry and 165,000 fry and eyed ova, it was foil that this part of the district was being neglected, and when out of an estimated 1,000,000 this soason we wero allotted a miserable 40,000, we would have neglected our duty if we had not ptuised a vote of want of confidence in tho Wellington society's council.

Pnhintua is tho angler's pnrodisc Rivers flow cn i t, west, nut tb, and south Within a radius of seven miles froni whore I am writing you have your choice of voter from tho largest river to the umalle'it brook. The bo-sin of the Man;iwntu is *o exfonNive and the climatic conditions in it no v.tiiod Unit it can hardly happen that "nil its blrc-ims are iiufishable at tho snmo tinu.'. When one river is flooded tlie hnppy angler can find another a few miles nwuy equally good mid iv proper condition. Perhaps no district in New Zealaud can say the same — certainly nono with which I am acquainted. Two rivers. — the M.ikuri and the Upper Muhgatainokn — mo known far and wide for their noble rainbow (rout fishing. Anglers* come from far and noar, oven from Australia, to fish them, and last year no less than 132 strangers stayed at tho Mnkurl Hotel for the fishing. Tin; Mokuri is good still ; but I should havo said the Upper Ms.ngalainoka was gootl. Its rainbow liming is a thing of the pant, owing to the niggardly supply of fry put into it in late years And if the "one river falls awcy owing to neglect' why not* the other, why not' others? These bush stroftms mo so linblo to flood both \iplont. and frequent during the winter and spring month-, (lint few of them soein (/m:ible ol stocking themselves without a-sislauco. And as the Pnhiatua commit icu saw faihuo sirring them in tho face through the negligence or incotmpetenee of those who should have looked to the interests of the district, they fflt calleJ upon to out adrift from the Wellington society before more Uamago v.-ns dono to then mnsrnificent livers, and by other incn".i attempt to do justice to their district. — T am. etc.,

J. THOMAS, Hon. Sec. I\ihiatim Sub-committee,

Wellington Acclimatisation Society.