QUINNAT SALMON

North Otago Times, Volume CVI, Issue 14081, 27 March 1918, Page 7

QUINNAT SALMON

ATLANTIC SPECIES NOT A SUCCESS. A great- fuss has been made because the quinnat salmon (a Pacific specie:;) has been caught in New Zealand. Possibly there are rivers in New Zealand where (lie presence of quinnat would not be detrimental to the wonderful trout fishing—the trout is a sportim; fish in every sense of the word, and when lie grows to salmon proportions, as he does sometimes in these waters, he is a salmon in every sense of the word, except that of species, He is a sea-going trout, and there obtains his size, just as the salmon does. The Atlantic salmon has been tried many times in New' Zealand, with failure for every result. He grows well in fresh water, goes out to sea, and that is the end of t. ti'' never returns. On the contrary, the quinnat salmon has returned, ;ut whether he is worthy of the fatted !i : i that is being sacrificed in his honour, is very doubtful. If he establishes himself in any river it will be at the expense of every kind of tisli. New Zealand has had unexpected good luck in the making up of a .'breed of trout willi habits created in some way by the translations, habits that .were never expected, for their origin was not our sea trout, but''our brook- trout, which have no annual inclination to go to sea and never go there unless they aie washed out in mighty spates. The catching with rod and line of a quinnat salmon in fresli water is quite exceptional, so fcfiat- as a sporting fish he is not going to improyc New Zealand, In his rivers lie runs up only, spawns, and dies, and blocks the finest rivers in the world with putrid fungus-growing matter. Is that a good thing for the trout that have become the natural fiuli of the river? 1 cannot- answer that question; it has to be tried to find out, but that which is much easier to answer is that the young quinnat will require more food than the young trout, and, being stronger, they will get it. So that once j more, and in a very exaggerated form,' the hostility of the trout and salmon ' intc«\sis crop up on the other 1 side of j the world.—lllustrated Sporting and I Dramatic News.'