ACCESS TO TROUT WATERS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 7, 8 July 1935, Page 8

ACCESS TO TROUT WATERS

Official replies to criticism are of various types. Sometimes the official explainer writes that the difficulties complained of do not exist, or else that they are grossly exaggerated; alternatively he writes that the Department has ihe matter in hand, and that a remedy is. steadily in view. The reply to critical anglers by the Minister of Internal Affairs (Sir Alexander Young) * belongs to neither of these evasive types; it is mainly a candid discussion of the difficulties of lateral access. Where lake foreshores or river-banks are open to fishing, lateral access thereto may still present obstacles to the angler, because access may be across farm paddocks (and some of these paddocks at certain times should not be disturbed) or through forest plantations (where (lie fire risk is deemed to be prohibitive). No general principle will settle all difliculties of access, but it would seem that in 99 cases out of 100 access across farm paddocks reasonably can be given if the farmer and the angler are both reasonable men; and in hardly one case in a hundred.is it! safe to allow people to go among the pine needles of a northern plantation in summer, when a single action might destroy square miles of trees. Where lateral access affects neither farming jior forestry, but the cost of buying right of way or cutting tracks, finance determines the pace. The Minister says that, in the interests of public access, Government Departments make all possible reservations in titles or leases. His statemenL "gels down to tin lacks," and invites any criticism that is constructive.