SALMON IN N.Z.

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 13

SALMON IN N.Z.

THE QUINNAT AS A SPORTING FISH

ACCLIMATISATION OF THE

SOCKEYE

(By Malcolm Ross.) {Written for "The. Post.")

The question as to what extent the iQuinnafc may be regarded as a sporting : fish has been much debated. One hears different opinions. My own experience is limited, and I give it for what it is worth. In company with Mr. E. B. Newton, of Ashburton, I fished in the lower reaches of the Rangitata on my way to -Te Anau for the Atlantic salmon -fishing. This year the run of Quinnat in the Canterbury rivers was late, and hot so large as it was last year. . The unusual dry summer and autumn may have had something to do with tho lateness of the run. We already know that the runs here vary in numbers as they do on the Pacific Coast. There is no doubt that the New Zealand Quinnat runs are increasing yearly, and that they ■- " will continue to increase for some years to come. Air. D. Hope, who is in charge of the hatchery in the Acclimatisation Gardens in Christchurch, tella mo that 'the smolta were in the Waimakariri last season literally in thousands promising a very, large run three years hence. Whatever may be said about the sporting qualities of the Quinnat there ' can be no' doubt that anglers in Canterbury , display an extraordinary keenness in attempting to catch them. When my friend and I reached the Rangitata River, fishermen seemed to be there in companies, or, at least, platoons. There was not "a single pool on tho Ashburton or .. Timaru side of the river that remained . unfished. V STRANGE TACKLE, Anglers came armed with tho strangest assortment of implement* of warfare. There were roda in extraordinary variety—from the" stiff bamboo and tho stout but pliant greenheart to the modern "Murdoch" and the steel-centred, .: split-cane 15rfooter—a triumph of modern manufacture. The reels varied, with the-rods. The split-caners wero armed with.the up-to-date "Perfect" and the Bilent "Silex," with n new contraption to stop the overrun. The 'greenhoarters had "Nottinghams," and more simpla machinery and ..the. bearded bambooera winches that might have been mode in the days of the delightful Scropa, or even of the beloved Izaak. . There was one the noise of which carried across .the river, with the clatter of a chaff cutter. Tackle was-usually in harmony with the rod. One. new, but disappointed, Set hopeful, convert to the gentlo art had a rod 'pi thick bamboo, which had been broken off Jnear the middle. Ths line ran through, rings made from foneing wire/ and the trace was of doubletwisted picture-wiro strong enough to hold up one'of Augustus John's pictures in the Royal-Academy. Two lumps of rough Jead.acted as sinkers, and the bait was the./.business end of. a teaspoon, spiritedj- Jjy^somo magic, from the-re-freshment room at the railway station. The bond of sympathy that the gentlo art induces drew' us together on tho bank, and enabled us each to examine each other's- tackle. While I was secretly amused at his, he was openly amazed at mine—fine trace, the Bmooth, pliant "Corona" line, and most of all the backing of thin-plaited silk, that might easily be used in '• a sewing-machine. I gave my brother beginner .what advice I'could, I may never meet him again on any mundane river, hut I hope he will have many a full creel, and that when we fish the streams "that down Cocytus valley flow, whore spectral fishes coma and go," our ghosts may land the ghosts of fish. When we arrived at the Rangitata, it. was_ cloudy, with a "fresh" caused by melting snow on the inland alps, and no one was catching fish. The fishermen on our aide of the stream were returning ; disappointed—like raiders without a prisoner. The fish had either been lying sullen at the bottom of tho .pools or had moved on. Next morning we went early up-stream til! we came to a likely pool into which we began to cast our-spoon- baits: In the throat'of the pool, about tho fifth cast, I felt a dull tug, struck, and was1 at once fast in a heavy fish. After amomentary hesitation, very unliko the first, swift rush of a Rainbow trout, ho made a quick, short run downstream, then ran back, suddenly changed his mind, and went off to the end of the pool with a strong rush that quickly took out 120 yards of line, and mado tho reel scream. All this looked likegood sport to come. At the end of the pool he leaped right out of tho water and fell back with a great splash—a clean-run fish, just up from the sea, and with sides that gleamed in the sunlight like polished silver. Suddenly hope, which had risen high, fell to the lowest depths. The fish was gone, and with him my spoon, and trace and twent-' ■ ty-five yards of line! After all my care there had been an unnoticed flaw in the line. In tho tail of the pool the fish gave one more great leap to get rid of the hook that was annoying him, and Newton, hurrying down, began to cast in hopes of fouling the broken line, and, perhaps,.getting.the fish after all. Just as 1 was about to tie on another trace and spoon I heard a shout from my companion and found that he had secured mv lost tackle, from which the fish had freed himself. We fished assiduously for the rest of the day. and I succeeded in landing, a twenty-two pounder, which kept mo busy for about twelve nunptes. - . FIGHT WITH. -A TWENTY-FIVE POUNDER. Next morning we rose at 5 o'clock, malle a hurried breakfast, and taking the car went, several miles up-stream ■We had heard of a pool from which one angler-,- in an afternoon and a mornings fishing, had taken thirteen Q.nmnat-. We hoped to be. first there, but found three car-loads of anglers . before us,.so went still farther up-stream, and commen-'ed to fish in a Ion" swift-runnin-r ,nool: There were fishermen aoove and b-low as on both sides of the river, but fish were few and far between. It was_ not long, however, before I was .fast in a fish which began to move somewhat dully about the pool without showing himself. After a few short, steady .runs,. he took it into his head to rush off down-stream. Putting a heavy strain on tho tackle, I got him to the top, and had a momentary glimpse of -his back, which showed me that he.-was-a big fish. He then made a more determined rush down-stream, the swift enrrent helping him. In this run he took'out .about 130 yards of line, ,«nd I had to follow quickly to keep a reasonable margin of safety on the reel. Gradually. I recovered, a good deal of the line, and held on grimly; but tho . fish had got into a very stroll? current, and, eveiv'-when I had, turned his head 'tip-stream,' he used his weight in the BV.:ift water and kept, below me. Newtun followed quickly with the gaff, but \b had now "got to" a bank where there 1 ' '

■was little chance of landing the fish, and I had perforce to follow him downstream, keeping a heavy strain on the rod all the time. Still lower down I had to steer him past the danger zone of a big gorse bush that lay almost submerged in the river about twenty yards from the bank. This safely accomplished, we continued the fight downstream towards a place where the river branched. By this time the fish was beginning to tire, and I had recovered nearly all the line he had taken out. But there was danger ahead in the branching stream, through which, if he took tho farther run, I might not have been able to follow him. It was apparently a case' of now or never. We had come to the end of the bank and the stream shallowed out on our side. Into the shallows I managed to guide him safely, and there Newton, who had been an interested, and, I imagine, a somewhat amused spectator, gaffed him. Tho fish proved to be a fine female, weighing twenty-five pounds. She had taken mo down the river for nearly half a mile, and the battle had lasted for exactly twenty-five minutes. One could wish for no better sport. But this fish was hooked at the side of the mouth in a way that gave it the advantage, and the heavy water in which it had to be played was a handicap to tho angler, i'rom all I could gather, the Quinnat AS.- n°t USUaUy so live]y a fighter as the Atlantic salmon. It is also against him as a sporting fish that he does not readily take the fly, though I believe if one found the river clear and fished .deep with, a heavy salmon fly he would catch yuinnat. The difficulty with these glacier rivers is that any melting of thn snows on the Alps brings down innumerable minute particles of disintegrated rock and mud which make tho water so cloudy that often the fish cannot sen a salmon fly when they could bco a three-inch glittering silver spoon or Devon. Used to big eea-rnn trout, Cantorbury fishermen—at all events, thofio who fish in the big rivers—gcem to bo mainly bait and artificial minnow anglers, so perhaps tho fly haa not been given a fair chance with the Quinnai. Jf er? «» also the fact that many catch the fish for sale, and an angler who is getting about a pound sterling for his fish will generally uso heavy tackle to make sure of landing him.' There is one other point against the Quinnat as a sporting fish. The run comes late in the season, varies considerably, and often is a short one. The Atlantic salmon, on tho other hand, begins to run in tho early «pring, and the run continues until late autumn. The spring flalung, which, apparently, you do not get with the Quinnat, is the best of the fishing with the Atkntie variety, Indeed, a battle with one good "springer" Is _ worth half a dozen of the tamer fights with the late autumn fish. Nevertheless, from the spertmg point of view, the Quinnat is not altogether to be despised. It Jg possible that in suitable water you might tempt him with a fly, fished deep, and there is always the chance of catching a forty or even a hfty-pounder. And, so long as there aro big fish to be caught, you will always find anglers ready to catch them. And, after all, we must not forget that the Quinnat was introduced not as a sport ing fish but for food. THE SOOKEYE, When I was on the Rangitata anglers wera catching small salmon which they took to be Sockeye (0. Nerka). 1 did not catch any of these small fish, and did not see them caught, but descriptions given by those who did catch them indicate that they may have been Sock«y°\ Up to one year there is not much difference in appearance between the Quinnat and the Sockeye, but the small fish that were being caught in the Rangitata were not yearlings. They were of weights ranging between three and ten pounds, and they had the bluish-green back and the silvery sides characteristic of the Sockeye, Some interesting correspondence on the subject has been published in the "Press," Opinions differed. Ova ef Sockeye were introduced by the Government, and the fry liberated in tributaries of the Waitaki and the small streams running into Lake Ohau. The process of intensive stocking adopted in regard to Quinnat was, however, not applied to Sockeye, and most of these liberated in the Ohau streams chose te. become landlocked, and ran back .from the lake into its head waters to spawn. In the lake they did not find as much feed as they could have obtained in the sea, and consequently did not grow to the usual size. Possibly some are now running to and from the sea, and Mr, Ayson tells me that fish, identified as Sockeye, have been caught below the hatchery at Hakataramea. If it is the case that they are now running In the Canterbury rivers, .we may expect eventually to see. a large increase in their numbers, for they are a very prolifio species. In North America, they are regarded as next in importance to the Quinnat aa a food fish, and tho Sockeyo fishery of the Eraser River system was formerly the world's greatest salmon fishery. Of late yeara it had deteriorated because, owing to a blockage_ in the channel and excessive fishing, in which Canada and America were competing, a sufficient number of fish were unable to get up to the spawn-mg-beds of tho Eraser River basin. Until the problem is dealt with internationally the fishery will not recover, The importance of the introduction of these fish into New Zealand waters cannot very well bo over-eßtimated, because, if they are successfully acclimatised, in a few years we may expect very large runs of these fish in our rivers, and there will be a profitable market for them in New Zealand and Australia, and perhaps even farther afield. Some figures from American statistics are illuminating. Every fourth year, as with tho Quinnat, there are big runs of Soekeyo. In the Eraser River from 1910 to 1912 inclusive, the runs produced, respectively. 384 869 189,769, and 307,775 cases of salmon! while, in 1913 the fishery produced no less than 2,401,488 eases. Then, 'owing to the causes mentioned, this great fishery began to decline,' until in 1921 the total pack was only 142,598 cases. The figures quoted aro for both Canadian'and American waters. aWith proper control it would be easy to get back to a yearly pack that would bo worth thirty million dollars a year. The moral, in so far as Now Zealand is concerned, is obvious. In connection with tho runs. of salmon, a point that is of special interest to anglers is how quickly thp fish run up the rivers. The Quinnat seems to be a slow-running fish. In America his run is usually four or five miles a day. Apparently it is about the same rate in N Tew Zealand. At the mouth of the Rangitata, when there is a run on, the fish can he seen coming in through tho breakers. Numbers remain for a timo in the pools of the lower reaches. They are caught in pools only a few miles from theseas, and, often, such fish have list their sea silver and have changed to a dull olive or a coppery colour, indicating that they have remained for some days in those lower pools. PROBLEMS FOR EXPERTS. American authorities says that many fish take two months to reach their spawning grounds, and that then it takes from two to six weeks, or eyen longer, before they arc ready to spawn. .In the American rivers there is a spring run in months corresponding to April, May, and June here, and an autumn run corresponding to tha Hew i&wleod ma ia Feb-

ruary, March, and April. One does not hear of the spring run in New Zealand. Is there such a run?

In the interesting correspondence tHt has lately been appearing in the Press, Mr. Edgar Stead states that he has caught a third species of Pacific salmon—a humpback—in a Canterbury river. From inquiries made in Wellington, I gather that humphacE ova was not imported. All the ova for stocking New Zealand rivers was obtained by experienced men used to handling thousands of Quinnat, and it is most unlikely that they would take the ova from a Humpback in mistake for a Quinnat. However, all doubts as to whether Sockeye and Humpback are being caught in Canterbury rivers could be settled by sending specimens to the Marine Department for . examination by an expert. If necessary they could be frozen, and forwarded for the opinion of the expertß in the United States.

[The first article of this series appeared m "The Post" of 14th June.]