ANGLERS’ ASSOCIATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22064, 21 September 1933, Page 7

ANGLERS’ ASSOCIATION

ANNUAL MEETING The annual meeting of the Otago Anglers’ Association was held last night. The president (Mr R. Kay) presided. ANNUAL REPORT. In moving the adoption of the annual report and balance sheet, which showed a credit balance of £2B 0s sd, the chairman said that a good deal of trouble had been experienced at Waipori with fires. The anglers had been blamed, and this led to a good deal of correspondence with the City Council. The matter had since been satisfactorily arranged, but . anglers would require to use more care with their fires. The annual report and balance sheet were adopted. GENERAL. A letter was received from_ the city electrical engineer enclosing copies of the Gazette notice declaring a portion of the Waipori watershed to he a forest fire district with a view to protecting the trees planned by the City Council around Lake Mahmerangi.—Received. Mr H-. Williams dealt with the matter of fire prevention at Waipori. Fireplaces, ho said, had been constructed in accessible places around the lake for the use of anglers, and it was hoped that anglers would use these when they were boiling their billies. It was of the utmost importance that great care should be exercised when fires were being made; otherwise there was a danger of anglers being excluded from the Waipori area. A vote of thanks was carried to Mr, Williams and those who had assisted him in the matter of building fireplaces at Waipori. Mr M. Leckie suggested that if the Acclimatisation Society concentrated less on putting fry into the rivers and gave more attention to breeding the fish which were already there, more satisfactory results would be obtained. It was stated that there were plenty of fish in the streams, but they were, in' the majority of cases, much too small to satisfy anglers. Mr C. A. Wilson asked how it was proposed to put big fish in the streams. When there were so many fishermen in Otago, he said, it was inevitable that the fish should become exhausted. The only way by which the size of the fish could be increased would be to declare a close season for a couple of years. He knew, however, that fishermen would not consent to the adoption of this action. Failing this it might be possible to limit the size of fish to 12 inches. Mr J. Leckie asked whether' it would be possible to import mayflies or some other form of fish feed.

Mr Wilson said there wag no doubt that no improvement could be made on the flies already in the country. If the supplies of these became depleted, then he did not see any remedy for this. It would be a question of years before the problems associated with the feeding' of fish were solved. With the intensive fishing and 'the absence of big feed, the size of the fish was bound to come down. Mr J. Orr said there was no dearth of big fish in the bigger rivers, and as proof of this quoted his experience while stripping fish in the Eglinton River, where he had seen 500 fish frozen, and the total weight of these was about two tons. He believed that the trouble in recent years had been the low state of the rivers.

Mr Williams said the Otago Acclimatisation Society’s Research Committee was doing good work. The response to the request for returns by anglers regarding their activities' had been disappointing, but he hoped that this year anglers would endeavour to assist the society by filling in the forms attached to their licenses.

Mr S. Barnes stressed the need for greater attention being given to research work to solve the problems associated with the growth of fish in the streams throughout the country. He urged anglers to fill in the forms, and thus furnish the Acclimatisation Society with facts which were required to arrive at certain conclusions.

ELECTION OF OFFICE-BEARERS. The election of office-bearers resulted as follows:—Patrons —Messrs J. Maconie, L. Perry, R. Kay. A. H. Templeton: president, Mr W. A. Raffills; vice-presidents— Messrs S. B. Sinclaire, W. H. Wilson, C. Arnold, T. Weir, and F. Monson; secretary, Mr R. Wilson; treasurer, Mr W. T. Brailey; auditor, Mr C. A. Wilson; committee —Messrs A. Gallands, C. Bedford, J. M'Gill, M. Leckie, L. Griffiths, J. Leckie, J. Spiro, F. Mayhew, J. Rhodes, A. Spiers. Before vacating the chair, the retiring president thanked the members for the support they bad given him during his term of office, and paid a special tribute to the work of the secretary. They had had a fairly strenuous year, he said, and he believed there was still a large amount of work to be done. The newly-elected president briefly returned thanks for his election.