TROUT FISHING

Northern Advocate, 11 July 1936, Page 2

TROUT FISHING

I IN THE BAY OF ISLANDS AN EXPERT’S OPINION. ; “DEFINITE POSSIBILITIES.” i ! j Few ever regard seriously any talk |on the possibilities of stocking | with trout Northland’s innumerable streams. The general opinion is that the only trout which will survive are the common mountain trout. Mr C. H. T. Wyiie, of Mauku, is a wellknown trout-fishing enthusiast, whose catches are well-known throughout New Zealand. He recently paid a visit to Northland, accompanied by Mr H. T. Revel, of King’s College. Auckj land, who is equally as interested in angling. The visit was made primar--1 ily for deep-sea fishing. However, in the following letter, Mr Wylie explains why he did not catch big fish, and how he spent a day or two catching little ones. “The object of our trip,” he writes, “was the big fish, but a long continued nor’-easter effectively quashed that idea.” Headquarters had been made at Russell. “When the Black Rocks and the Brampton Reef are boiling white it is no time to venture out of the bay in a small launch,” he observed. “As a partial compensation, I was introduced to another type of fishing which I had no idea was obtainable north of Auckland. We went out to a cheery little stream —the Kerikeri, I think my host called it —and caught rainbow trout on the fly. Previously, I had done all my fishing at Taupo, Rotorua and thereabouts, and I confess I was sceptical when I was taken out to angle for them away up here.” “I was rather anxious to see the water, for there may be trout in abundance in a stream, but unless the water has sufficient ripple you might as well whistle for trout as try and catch them on a fly. ‘Dead water’ is the angler’s ‘bete noir.’ But when we stopped the car on a bridge over a ripple several chains long, and as nice a bit of fly water as one would wish to see, my spirits rose. I began to think there might be something in this business —that is, if there were any fish there, which I greatly doubted.

“Well, I apologise to my host, the river, its tutelary Naiad (if any), and anybody else concerned. That ripple was full of small fish, mostly of the previous season’s spawning, and at the end of it, where it literally ‘went off the deep end,’ my friend (now, he may be a past master at hauling in the sportive kingfish or the coy hapuka up from the vasty deep, but he doesn’t know a trout-fly from a feather-duster), my friend, as I was saying, hooked and played a splendid fish of about 4Jlbs, and was only prevented from landing it by the fact that I was upstream with the only gaff that the outfit boasted. Above the bridge I had time to fish only about half a mile of water, but I got one nice fish, and several interested inquiries from friends of his, which they Refused to pursue to a closer acquaintance. But the water was really excellent, and, having no experience of the locality, I was ho doubt using; the wrong type of fly. “Below the, bridge the water is not so good. It is difficult of access, and a great deal of it is rather ‘dead,’ suitable for the dry fly. in places towards evening, but not broken enough for the wet fly. We had to push our way through acres of high gorse (thighboots for me next time, I avow) till we came to a stretch of more lively water above the falls we could hear soaring downstream from us. I think I thoroughly deserved the fish I hooked there. To sum up what I did see of the stream convinced me of three things. (1) The majority of it is excellent fly water. (2) Fish were there in at least moderate numbers. (3) They were breeding naturally there, as evidenced by the number of fingerlings and one-year fish we saw. They also appear to ’be a strong healthy type of fish, and very game fighters, and, as we found later, excellent eating. This stream would obviously repay a little attention in stocking and ranging, and the local society is missing a great opportunity if Jit doesn t get to work. “But it is missing a far greater one where the Waitangi is concerned. We tried this out on another day. and drew blank. But what a glorious stretch of fly-water is going begging there! Here we have mile upon mile of beautifully broken water, mostly wadable in safety, and offering a tiemendous scope for anglers if only the fish were there.

“I have heard later that it has been tentatively proposed to stock the stream with brown trout. To my mind, this would be a great mistake. It is obviously a rainbow river. The brown fry is a more sluggish fish than his rainbow cousins, and less ague in dodging his natural enemy, the eel. So I am afraid the eels that abound in the river would have a glorious time and the anglers a thin one. Mr Wylio is convinced that if the Waitangi was stocked annually with rainbow fry, and ‘the water closed ,o anglers for three years, and a sharp eye kept on poachers, the river would be equal as a trout-fishermen’s rendezvous to any in the North Island—truly a sweeping statement, but, at the same time, it comes from an expert in the fishing world. He concludes his letter thus;— In these two streams, the Bay of Islands possesses a great potential asset and it should waste no time in seeing to their development. Some time in the future I hope to come home from one of them with a creel full ‘if’ as Mr Kipling said."