STRANDED TROUT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 255, 27 September 1932, Page 10

STRANDED TROUT

EFFECTS OF DRY SPELL. NELSON RIVERS BECOME DRY. The protracted dry spell of tho last two or three months in Nelson has had a marked effect on the flow of some of the rivers in tho district and in consequence the Nelson Acclimatisation Society has had to incur a considerable expense in having the stranded trout removed from the fast-drying pools in riverbeds to where the water was running, or to a lake, as tho case may bo. Tho D’ Urville River, at the head of Lake Rotoroa, dried up for a mile and one-half from the mouth, with the exception of a series of pools in which thousands of trout were stranded. Mr H. Flower, of Lake House, undertook to have these fish removed to tho lake. After several trips to the river, and assisted by a number of helpers, he succeeded in liberating from 10,000 to 12,000 trout ranging from four to five inches in length to 101 b to 121 b in weight. The work involved in carrying this number of fish in cans for distances over a mile on the rough riverbed was very strenuous. Tho Sabine River, which flows into the lake within two miles of the D’Urvihe, is not so subject to drought as the latter river, and Mr Flower reports that the trout were spawning in large numbers for miles up this river. They are practically all rainbow, as were the bulk of those taken from tlve D’Urville, a fact which augurs well for the future fishing at Lake Rotoroa.