FISHING- IN N.Z.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 10450, 3 December 1927, Page 4

FISHING- IN N.Z.

AN .ENTICING BOOK FOR

ANGLERS

'Followers of tlie rod and line will ho intrigued by “Rod Fishing in New Zealand Waters,” from the pen ot Captain T. E. Donne, C.AI.G., who ought to know the facts, seeing that he evas general manager of. the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts, and administered the Government- game and fishing districts , extending from Lakes Rotorua, and Taupo to Waikaremoana arid the Bay of Plenty.

New Zealand is indeed the “fisherman’s paradise, with its teeming lakes, ribers, ancl seas.” The reason given is that* there is a plentiful supply of food, ancl. excepting at the sprawning 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. The author, indeed, suggests quite seriouslv that the time has come for New Zealand to reverse the process and send ova ot her virile brown and Loch Levon trout to the Mother Country. As for the Dominion importing tinned salmon, lobster, herrings, and sardine's, lie is definitely of opinion that such importations of canned fish should bo “a matter of history before long.” Speaking ot the exceptional size to which Now Zealand iish grow on account of “the suitability of the clean, cold water, and abundance of aquatic msect fauna,” lie recalls'a gain of 21-lb. m weight in five months of a rainbow trout released in the River Selwyn. While on the subject of big iish, he says that the largest known was n brown trout taken on a spinning minnow from the beach at Lake Wakatipu. It weighed 8711 b. In one season 56,000 trout were taken from Lake Taupo and its rivers weighing well over 100 . tons. At Lake Wnka-t-ipu a resident Loci his pigs on trout for many years, alternating this diet with rabbits 1 In quite a class of sport by itself is the quest of the famous swordfish, and here again New Zealand is the most favored of countries. The largest swordfish ever caught in the Northern Hemisphere weighed iCOib. Last voar an Englishman visiting the Bay of Islands, landed one which turned the scale at (b6lb, alter it had disgorged portion of its breakfast, consisting of seven large red schnapper (spelt “snapper” by the author). Tho rod used w«is a slantcue of hickory, with a geared reel on its upper side and IoD yards ol line linen thread line. The swordfish is the champion “loppor.” Who can doubt it after reading this description of him:— Oil occasion he conics out ot t.ho water like a holt Irian the blue and appears in the air with a long, low leap, covering some 80 or 40 toot, the skin shining in the sunlight like a streak of burnished silver. Ho then makes oil' at hurricane sp'ed, leaping any number, ol times, up to 17, 80, or even more, and invariably heading north-east. Often the chase lasts for several hours, during which nearly a score of miles are covered. Because the swordfish is a “lighting gentleman" with a long ancestry, it is not "film ’ (correct) to give him cold steel, so he is not always speared nr galled. \n interesting chapter is that describing the habits of the famous porpoise, JV-iorus Jack, who was protected bv special Act ol .Parliament at the instance ol the author, and there ere chanters devoted to Otlti t forms oi fishing m which Now Zealand abounds, including the pursuit of sharks and even whales.