FISHING IN WESTLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23436, 26 February 1938, Page 14

FISHING IN WESTLAND

SALMON AND SWORDFISH INVESTIGATION TO BE MADE Two well-known Greymouth business men, Messrs F. F. Boustridge and J. H. Hayton, have set out in an attempt to find if there are quinnat salmon running in the rivers of South Westland, as has been rumoured for some time, and if there are big-game fish, such as swordfish, off the coast of Westland, Messrs Boustridge and Hayton will camp at Paringa River, and from that base they will make a thorough investigation lasting a week. Added interest surrounds the investigation into the possibilities of swordfish being off the coast of Westland, because of the stranding of a huge broadbill on the beach at Hokitika a few weeks ago, apparently injured after a fight with another of its kind.

The stranded broadbill weighed 8801 b, an exceptional weight, the average being about 400 of 5001 b. The world’s record catch of this fish is one of 8421 b, taken off the coast of Chile in 1936. In March last a huge broadbill swordfish, of approximately the same weight as that stranded at Hokitika, was washed up on the beach at Cobden, and not very long age commercial fishermen operating off Greymouth reported to Mr Ivan t Bennington, honorary secretary of the Greymouth District Acclimatisation Society, that I hey had seen swordfish some distance out, some of which were definitely striped marlin, another species of swordfish. Others were thought to be broadbills.