ANGLING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1640, 28 April 1883, Page 22

ANGLING.

Trout Fishing in New Zealand. ,

Colonials are often accused of " blowing,'' - but we think the following letter, which waa J recently sent to Land and Water from Christ- ■ church, will prove that the Home people are hard to beat at it : — "".'■ • L i ?' 1 . I beg to send you by this mail one, of, our daily papers, in which you will aee,a reporfejof one day's brown trout fishing on one of our ', Canterbury streams, and that the'.'most diffi- \ cult to, fish — in fact, a stream that a stranger. would not have a chance of doing any gopdf upon unless he got the "tip" (as 1 they cair it, here) from a Canterbury man.^ For instance, an Otago gentleman, who imagined, he knew, a' t , "lot," was fishing the same stream the same " day and got nothing. Otago is the province south of Canterbury, and is splendidly fur- . nished with streams well stocked with trout, * as I can vouch • for, and consequently thai Southerners think they know everything, but they make a mistake sometimes. I was for-., tunate enough to do splendidly when I visited the South last year, and astonished them a little, but I don't take much credit, as I have had thirty years trout and salmon fishing experience, twenty of which were spent in Ireland ' on the Shannon, Westmeath lakes, Ballina, the lakes of Killarnoy, and wherever good fishing • was to be had ; so I ought to know a little about it, and, without boing egotistical, I may say I hold the palm here. Even in Ireland on the Westmeath lakes I l never had such sport as I had lately on this river (the Selwyn). The fish are simply magnificent in every way. They play like demons., A 4|lb fish will give you from ten to twentyfive minutes' play. They are short, thick fish, with very small heads, and a beautiful silvery body, with black spotd like a salmon. In fact, * ; they very seldom retain their red spots after they reach 2ilb. A fish lib in weight will have them. 1 returned sixteen fish all lib or* over in one day to the river. I regret to say '„' others do not do this. We consider a fish of this size a sprat in this river. t W. S. COOKE. ' Christchurch, New Zealand, December 20th, 1882. ' ' The following is the cutting forwarded,:-*-.' " That well-known disciple of old Izaak ', Walton, MrW. S. Cooke, whose skill in oir-/. cumventing the finny race is known^ to moaV' anglers, has- just returned from a trip'tO' the' i gorge of the Selwyn, and gives the following" remarkable result of one day's fishing. £ 'The ' take was ten fish, weighing a 8 under t^illy §> 4 Jib, 2£lb, 31b, 2£lb, 4Jlb, 4Mb, 71b, 61b, and' 21b, making a net total of '4o|lb. As the pubf - lie are somewhat sceptical as to these' extraordinary takes, the, fish we're parefully andseparately weighod in the presence of Messrs Thornton and Gwatkin/and several others."' For the information of thoseMesiroiis of fishing in the upper waters of the Selwyn, or more t>ro« • perly speaking the gorge, it may be as well to -\ state that the spot is easily reached by trap from the South Malvern Hotel." [We are much obliged to Mr Cooke for.theenthusiastic sporting glimpse he gives us, with the results which our acclimatisation efforta have accomplished for the waters of New Zoo- - land. We do not wonder that our correspondent should have proved such a crack among the Antipodean anglers, seeing that he had ■■ • served his apprenticeship in Ireland, along the glorious waters of the Shannon and the Moy,as well as over the lakes of Westmeath and Killarney. If the Old Country has sent to the , Antipodes rather over much of sparrows, and rabbits, and thistles, it is some satisfaction to balance against those " too-much-of-a-good-thing " sort of imposts on land a growing supply of ripping good trout, weighing from 31b to '• 71b a-piece, in the waters. We do not think ' the inhabitants of New Zealand will ever complain of a superabundance of trout.]