AMERICAN SCIENTISTS STUDY OUR BIG-GAME FISH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23275, 18 February 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMERICAN SCIENTISTS STUDY OUR BIG-GAME FISH

By M.G.M.

MOT for many years has New Zealand's deep-sea fishing been so much in the public eye as it is at the present time. One of the world's greatest and richest organisations for the study and investigation of natural history, the American Museum of Natural History, has sent a party of excellently-equipped scientific and photographic experts led by the millionaire sportsman, Mr. Michael Lerner, who is field associate of the museum in the department of fishes, to make a study of: the Dominion's deep-sea fish.

The party's present headquarters, Mayor Island, in the Bay of Plenty, 23 miles east of Tauranga, has long been recognised as one of New Zealand's best deep-sea fishing grounds, - and has already achieved, a world-wide reputation for the magnificent sport it offers. In the 1937-38 season, close on 300 recognised big-gamo fish were landed there.

Extensive Obsidian Deposits Last year, the total soared to well over that figure for the short three months of the season. Bad weather has kept the total comparatively low so far this year, but during recent weeks seldom a day has passed without three, four or more big fish being brought ashore by the five boats which comprise the Mayor Island fleet. In the three days immediately prior to the fierce easterly gale which caused the postponement of so many Provincial Anniversary Day celebrations, 32 fish were landed.

Mayor Island Offers Many Attractions

I An old Maori stronghold, Mayor j Island has always been the home of good fishing. But its Maori name, 'Tuhua, draws attention to yet another of its many fascinating peculiarities. Tuhua is the Maori for obsidian or volcanic glass —extremely hard and brittle and highly prized by native craftsmen for its usefulness as a carving and cutting medium. When your launch noses round Te More-o-te-moiterangi, the south-east point of Opo Bay, headquarters of the deep-sea fishermen, you can see this black, pitchlike substance glinting in the sunlight as it plays upon the cliffs. Opo Bay, or as it is now more generally known, South East Bay, is itself unique in' its unrivalled natural beauty. Sheltered from every wind but a southeasterly, it is an idyllic pohutukawafringed cove with deep, clear water and a clean shingle beach shelving steeply into the tide. It has few buildings. There are one or two huts built for the use of fishing parties and an" old concrete smoke-house which in the season now does service as a cookhouse and dining room. From early in. .the morning, a scorching sun glances off the wavelets in the bay. Storm in the flight Calm, serene and picturesque, it is a spot beloved by all who visit the island. In the evening, when the sky is streaked with the last dying pastel shades of sunset, more than one distinguished overseas visitor has been heard to describe it as one of the world's most beautiful camping spots. Not always is it so calm and serene, however, and visitors to the island during that last memorable Anniversary week-end will have cause to remember the turbulent moods of the Pacific. At

night the bay was smooth and quiet. Only a leaden sky and the oily grey of the lightly-heaving ocean gave an indication of the approaching storm. The air was heavy and still. But at 11 o'clock rain began to fall—lightly at first, and then more steadily. With it came the wind, hustling into the peaceful bay, rolling its limpid waters into angry green waves. Soon great combers were pounding the shingle beach with relentless fury. No boat could stay in that cauldron and survive. So, at two in the morning, weary boatmen tumbled drowsily from their bunks to weigh anchor and seek shelter on the lee coast. : 1 ; i s For two days the seas ran high with a wild stretch of tossing ocean separating the island from the mainland. Food was sent overland to the sheltering boatmen. Tent guys and pegs were tightened and oilskins were the prevailing fashion in dress. When the wind dropped a day later, the procession l to the mainland commenced. Business men with the keys of the office safe, shophands and tradesmen —all were forced to yield to the fury of the wind. But it is in the warmth of the real New Zealand summer-time that you really appreciate the beauty of Mayor Island. Darker'than emeralds, it is a jewel set in nature's richest blue. Rising 1274 feet from the sea, with bushcovered, hog's back ridges running steeply down .to the somewhat forbidding coastline, it provides a pro-' tected home for some of New Zealand's most gifted songsters, the bellbirds and tuis. Home of the Pohutukawa Pohutukawas grow there in luxuriant profusion and if these beautiful saltloving coastal trees have an ancestral home it must be at Mayor Island. There is a grove of them on the newlyblazed track to North-Western Bay lifting their heads tall and straight for 40 feet and more without .the suspicion of a twist as they seek the sun. Another huge tree, quite close to Opo Bay and some distance inland, was described in a paper read before the Auckland Institute in 1884 by Mr. C. E. Goldsmith, district surveyor at Tauranga, as one of the largest he had seen in New Zealand. To-day, it is commonly known as "The Big Tree," and' its gnarled trunk and huge spreading limbs are frequently inspected by visitors to the island.

Most interesting of the island's many unusual characteristics is the large crater, estimated to be five miles in circumference, which is an outstanding feature of the topography. Covered with unbroken bush, it presents a magnificent sight from a peak near the trig station on a clear, sunny day, with its two small lakes inset in the of the dark green of the surrounding bush. Former Maori Population Mr. Goldsmith's account of the island as. he found it in 1884, together: with a more detailed record given by Mr. Bernard Sladden in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology in 1926, still, apparently, remain the most authoritative descriptions. There is no doubt, of its place in Maori" history, and even to-day impressionable visitors are sometimes thrilled with the legend of the Pawa Man whose shrieks and moans are to be heard when the easterlies blow! Then beware! For if he finds you sleeping alone in the open, you are doomed. Of the Maoris Mr. Goldsmith wrote: "The population at one time must have been very large. Ruins of very large pas are to be found on every high hill and point of advantage." One of the principal wahitapu, or burial grounds, no stated, was located in the centre of the pohutukawa bush at a place called Wharenui Point on the eastern coast of the island.

To-day, the island is uninhabited except in the fishing season. Too far from the mainland for a convenient camping holiday, it remains a paradise for scientists with geological or botanical turn of mind. Photographers are never at a loss for first-class material, and m its deep blue waters lurk the answers to livery fisherman's prayer.