GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1248, 30 January 1896, Page 28

GOSSIP.

By "Blue Dun." At Mr Tisdall's shop on Lambton Quay on Tuesday I saw one of the finest fish ever caught in the ETutt. It was a brown trout weighing B£lb and in absolutely perfect condition. The fish measured 26in full in length, and had a girth measurement of 16\in. The lucky captor was Mr R. McNab, of "the Lower Hutt. Mr McNab also got a 31b beauty the same day, and a fellow-angler, Mr Price, who was fishing with him, another of about the same weight. The fish were all caught with the sole skin white bait minnow. Mr Hugh Campbell, junr., a well-known Wairarapa angler, had a good catch in the Waipoua, near Masterton, the other day. The basket under an hour's * \Q&\ and weighing in all 341 b. The fish eaught in the evening with three Sties, Governor, Hofland's Fancy and Red Spinner, the three on the one cast. •

Mr Campbell reports another curious occurrence in connection with the above. He had two fish on his cast twice in succession.

Mr J. It. Macdonald, of the Lands Department, had a fair afternoon's sport last Saturday in the. Pukuratahi, the heaviest fish weighing 31b.

The rivers just now are all in splendid condition, and I hope next week to chronicle some exceptionally good sport.

That enthusiastic angler, Mr C. H. Izard, had some splendid sport in one of the Wairarapa streams the other day. His seven fish weighed respectively, 4.2, 3.14, 3.12, 3.12, 3.1, 2.2, and 1.2, total 21.13, all caught with the fly, and splendid fish. Mr Izard has also had some good sport in the Akatarawa and Pukuratahi.

I hear that fish are very plentiful in the Horokiwi just now.

The Lyttelton Times of January 14th says : —'* While two of the county council employees were watching a storm on Lake Pukaki last week, when waves like those of the sea were breaking on the shore, they saw a huge trout carried by a running wave on to a shoal part of the beach, and left there when the wave receded. It was so large that they were partly too much afraid aud partly too much astonished to attempt to seize it; and indeed that would have been no easy matter, for they declared that when stranded it splashed about and jumped 10ft or 12ft in the air. They could not estimate its length as it flopped about, but at one moment it lay beside a rock and extended each way beyond it, and the rock is stated to be 6ffc wide. The men went to look for stones to kill the fish, but before they could get them the fish escaped in succeeding waves."

I take the following receipt for revarnishing rods from the Fishing Gazette:— Coachmaker's varnish (copal) is the best varnish, but it must be put on as thinly and evenly as possible, as it takes a tedious time in drying, especially in damp weather. Two coats are sufficient, but the second must not be put on until the first is perfectly dry. Shellac varnish is not nearly so good as copal for rods, but it is very easily applied, so is generally used.

The Christchurch Press states that on Sunday, the 12th, Mr W. H. Teape shot a strange fish which was stranded in shallow water at Governor's Bay. The fish, which resembled a whale, measured 7ft long, and its girth at the thickest part was 4ft. It had a long nose resembling the bill of a duck, and in its mouth were counted 174 teeth. It had a blow hole on the top of its head resembling a whale. Although hundreds of people examined the fish none of* them could tell what it was. In this connection it may be stated that Captain Hutton has pronounced the strange fish recently captured at Oamaru to be a bonito. This fish is common in the tropics, but has never been recorded so far south as New Zealand before.

The Brunner News reports the capture of an eel weighing- 107flb.