COLLECTING SALMON OVA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1382, 25 May 1878, Page 21

COLLECTING SALMON OVA.

Mr Sackville Phelps, writing to Land and Water, says ; — ' I saw in your paper a few weeks since an amusing acoount of an unauocessful attempt of Mr Buckland's to obtain with nets in a hard frost salmon ova to send to New Zealand. I cannot resist sending you an account of my greater success some years ago with rod and line. The first year Mr Youl succeeded in Bending ova to Australia, Mr Ramsbotitom, of Olithero, and. his son, came to the Dovey to try and get some. They net to work at the head of the river

with nets and coracles, and fished from Malhoyd to below Cemmaes, and although they caught plenty of fish, they had all spawned. < As we then came to a part of the river where all the pools were staked, I advised them to give it up, and try the estuary with drag-net the next day. This they did, but only got one small female with spawn. Poor Ramsbottom was in despair, as his son -was anxious to go to Australia with the ova, but a3 yet they had got none anywhere. I told him I felt confident I could get some with a fly. Ramsbottora shook his head, and was sure that spawning fish would not rise, particularly in such a frqst as was then setting in. But the next morning, although an intense frost, I drove to the wooden bridge, and fished down to the Willow Pool without a rise. Here I hooked a grand old kipper about 141b., as brown as a gipsy, which, after a good fight, I brought to land. My old attendant Matthew fastened a cord to his tail and pegged it to the bank, and then I fished pool after pool without a rise till I came to Upper Swetllan, when I soon found my hook fast in a noble fish, and the silver gleam made vne hope it was a lady. The line, all frozen, rattled like wire through the rings, and I was long before I could bring it to the gravel. At length Matthew tailed a perfect beauty, a female of 181b or 201b, a prize for poor Ramsbottom, as she was nearly bursting with spawn — this we also pegged to the bank, and Matthew hurried back to get the brown gentleman above. I charged him to take plenty of time,' putting it again in the water every 100 yards. I then fished on without moving another till I got to the Catchpool, when I hooked and made quick work of another male fish, which 1 carried carefully back to the female above. Findings Matthew had nob returned, to while away the time I'fished Swetllan over again, when, just a» Matthew came, I fancied a fish touched me deep in the water ; but we then set to work to deprive the female of her burden, and impregnate the eggs, which Mr Ramsbottom had shown me how to manage the day before. This we accomplished most successfully, a peach-like bloom stealing over the eggs, and when, returning her once more to the river, she sailed away as if nothing had happened. My man then begged me to go home, as having been obliged to wade very deep, I was literally cased in ice, my wading trousers as stiff and hard as tin ; but I set to work once more, and on casting over the spot I thought I had felt a fish, my doubts were soon set at rest, and I had another safely hooked, and soon landed a much smaller female, but with roe. This we attended to, and placing the ova between moss and covering that in the bucket with gravel, he placed it under the edge of a tiny waterfall. lat once sent word to Mr Ramsbottom, who had again gone to Malhoyd to try his luck. The next morning; he came back, and was not a little pleased to see the mass of eggs I had for him. Very singularly, Mr Buckland in the North, and Mr Francis on the Severn, had both been trying for some days in vain, when ,on the sam 6 day they also both got some. I have had many a good day's sport on the Dovey, but none that I look back to with so much pleasure as this."