The Fisherman.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 976, 14 November 1890, Page 12

The Fisherman.

ANGLING NOTES. ; THE WAINUI-O-SIATA STREAM. (By Alio). The fishing on this stream this year is really very good, and, to my mind, it is without exception the best fly stream in the province. I have known baskets taken on it by one rod in a day since the opening of the season amounting to 36 really good fish, say from lib to 21b, and since that from 10 to 23 fish hare been taken very often by the various fishermen who rent ‘ whares ’ on its lovely banks, and who make it a practice to go out once every week, wet or fine. I fancy that a mistake has been made by our Acclimatisation Society when they decided to try the experiment of opening the season on the 15th of September, instead of heretofore on the Ist of October, because it is now generally admitted by fishermen that the fish were not in good condition. I think this is also the case on the Hutt river, but as I have not as yet fished it I cannot say from my own knowledge, but I have been told so by fishermen who have done so. I feel quite sure that when the Council meet again before the beginning of next season they will decide on opening it as usual on the Ist of October ; as a matter of fact the fish are only now iu fair condition, so you can imagine what they must have been like in September and October. It is a mo3t peculiar thing that the fish in Wamui have such a fancy all the year round about three kinds of flies, and although you may have a book full of all kinds, from the midge to the salmon fly, they will still refuse everything except the poorinor, black gnat, and March brown. I have myself repeatedly tried them with all kinds, but to no purpose ; immediately, however, I have shifted my flies and put on the two or three kinds which I have alluded to and which are fished with day after day from October to March, they at once rise freely, that is, if they are feeding at all. I do not think that this peculiar taste in trout for a set of particular flies is so noticeable on any other stream I have ever fished. It has been noticed by some fisherman this year that the fish in the Black Creek (a tributary of the Wamui) are awfully scarce ; in fact, but few fish have been taken out of it with the fly, and less seen with the eye. Now, last season it was quite common to take out of this creek about 10 to 20 fish in a day, and good fish, too, from lib to 41b. I can only account for it by scrub fires which took place last season on each side of the banks, which is most likely the cause of it ; or it might be the eels, which are very large and numerous, having acquired the taste of trout during the winter and destroyed most of them. As an instance, just to show you the size eels are in this tributary, I will tell you what took place one day last week. A gentleman known to myself went up this creek to clean some fish, and so that he might be more handy to the water lie stepped upon a log quite close to the bank. After cleaning about half a dozen trout he was washing his hands in the water, when he saw something, which he took to be a shadow, darting right across the rapid. He only had time to take his hand quickly out when an eel snapped at it, just missing his fingers. This caused iny friend such annoyance that lie went back to his ‘ wliare ’ and got a largo hook and stout line, also, a very large gaff, and proceeded to fish in real earnest for the offender. He had not been at it long when up he (the eel, came as bold as brass and took his bait. My friend gave him a pull, getting his head and shoulders right out of the water and placed his gaff into his side. The eel not liking this kind of treatment switched his tail right round the gaff and snapped it short off, breaking the line at the same time. His weight was estimated to be 251 b or 201 b. This, I think, will show you that they are very large, and I know from observation that they are very numerous, and surely if they would go for a fellow’s hand they would not refuse a good trout. In any case, put the cause of it down to what you please, I am quite sure that the fish in this creek have been awfully thinned out, for it was once, as I have already pointed out, very well stocked. I have seen iu the papers lately that it is contemplated by the City Council to erect some dams to store more water in the summer time above the large one already erected. Now, I am sure if this is done you can say good-bye to fishing on a certain portion of Wamui. As you are aware, the water from December to February is barely enough to keep the fish alive from the present dam to old Dick’s place down stream, say a distance of 3 miles. That being the case, if the proposed new dams are erected next to no water at all will find its way down the river bed until the Black Creek and the one just below Dick’s are reached. I really think something should be done by the society to induce the Corporation to allow sufficient water to pass from the dam to the river bed below to keep the fish from perishing. NOW AND THEN. A Fishy Idyl by Maey. Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, a survey party led their horses, stumbling over roots and rocks, splashing through pools of water, thoroughly knocked up. They had crossed where the queenly Waingawa tempestuous rolls from her hills, and lost their pack mule with tucker and supplies. Hungry and dejected they tried to avoid Absalom’s fate among the spiral creepers hanging in heavy festoons from the trees, whose knotted trunks were clad to the tops in liohens and moss. Before them stretched the muddy track, winding round fallen trees. The sunset rays fell in fretted patches on the broad stems, lighting a waving sea of fern fronds and delicate tracery of foliage. It was nearly dark before they reached their camping ground. No powder, no food, * no fish in these rivers like the Old Country,’ groaned Sandy—a born angler —as he listened to the music of a mountain stream rushing over the boulders, and tried to catch a slippery eel beside the ferny bank. Just out of stone throw a hoary old kaka bent down, cynically eyeing their miserable plight, bis head on one side as he picked his choice supper of insects.

Let us turn to the same scene in IS9O— a lapse of 30 years. On another golden evening, the dashing stream amid bowers of ferns and tawa still winds away to the plain, and a descendant of the same old kaka looks down admiringly on a happier group of cheery sportsmen. The pioneers of old have gathered fora day's trout fishing. They-had driven comfortably along a good road to the old camp, and had cast the feathery fly on the rippling eddies and were discussing the results in chorus, while a row of spotted beauties shone among a background of fern, and the air was full of the sound of nature rejoicing. The ‘ tryit, tryit, try it,’ of cicadas, and the liquid note of the tui echoed on all sides, and Sandy, an old man now, proposed a toast, 1 Here’s to Frank Buckland’s shade, and to those who helped to graft on life’s hard platitudes the everspringiug buds of nature’s royal gifts !’