BANK NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 38

BANK NOTES.

* . • The Easter holidays have placed me somewhat at a disadvantage in looking up items for insertion in this issue. Many anglers havß lef b town, no doubt, and are having a good time of it, but a 9 they have nob yefc returned, and will not do go until after " copy " is in, I am, of course, unable fco chronicle their doing', bat hope to do so in the next; publication of the Witness, when I shall bid adieu to anglers for this season.

The Waitaki. — In the course of a conversation with a resident in the Waitaki district, he gave it as his opinion that the trout in the Waitaki River are decreasing very fast in point of number, aud appeared to think that mining operations have something to do with it, but how that can be I can hardly understand. He also mentioned incidentally that a good deal of poaching went on.

The Kakanui — Messrs Henry, Lambert, and Proufc visited the Kikanui on Thursday night, and fished it till the time of Friday's express leaving. Sir Lambert got three fish, but the others were singularly unfortunate, and did nob get anything. The water was very low and clear, aud a sharp frost set in of a night. The anglers tried a variety of lures. Mr Lambert making his catch with the fly. Mr G. Munro went up on Friday afternoon, but when last seen had not succeeded in taking anything. The three gentlemen mentioned did not see many fish in the river, but when there last time, a while back, saw hundreds.

The Pomahaka Btjkning Plains. — Mr W. Willocks and his friend stayed two days, the sth and 6th, during which time they caught 22 fish, ranging from 2-^lb to s!b. At time of writing (12tb) the river is in capital trim — a nice rich browD. Mr Richardson, from Dunedin, and Mr Crawford have each been getting some nice fish these last few days ; up at what is called the island they landed nine fish weighing 31b. — Correspondent.

* . • Mr W. Baden-Powell, writing to the Field on the subjecb of hooks, says :—''l: — ''I have always found the turn-down eye of small 000, to 4 or 5, largo enough, so long as the gut has only to reeve once through the eye, and then fasten with an overhand blip knot. Tn salmon flies the size and form of the eye is most important; both for a safe knot and for efficient swimming the gut niusb puss twice through the eye. In some forms of hook the eye is burned down at nearly a right angle, and has an abrupt ending or batting of wire end to wire just at the neck of the eye, and heace is just perfect for chafiDg the gut through in the shortest time. The most perfect form for security of hold and absence of chafe to the gut is the turn-down return eye (for siDgle hooks), aud the continuous wire solid-brazsd turned-down eye for double hooki — that is, so far as my experience goes ; and the hooks I refer to are made by Messrs W. Bartleet, of Abbey Mills, Redditob. These hooks are bronzed, and. so far as salmon hooks are concerned, I have found bronze far less liable to rust than blue hooks. But in some patterns of fly, even to trout s : ze, I would like to have the hooks bright. Messrs Bartleet inform me that they now have a special process by which they can silver the hooks (salmon and trout) without rendering them weaker, as was the case under old attempts to produce bright hooks. The eyes of the hooks above mentioned are turned down to an angle of about 45deg, and with an easy tapered neck make a kindly form for gat to hold to without undue chafe. Any practical salmon fisher, of not too microscopic a nature, who has actually tested these hooks will never again willingly tie or use a gut-looped hook, and certainly not a right-angle bend of abrupt metal eye. I haye — and who has not ? — quite a well-filled cemetery of old flies, laid by because their gut eyes have given out ; and the only reason for keeping them- is that their feathers may be used in tying smaller patterns or sea-trout flies. For a good haul-and-hold hook for ealmon there is none to beat the double hook with the double-brazed, solid-eyed upturned shank ; the hold may break or the line may part, -but there is no excuse for snapped metal nor for defective rotten gut-eye when perfect hooks are obtainable."

Fancy or Imitation Flies. — There is no piscatoriaFaubject which has been more warmly and persistently debated than the importance

of imitating the fly which is upon the water. Our most expert south country fishermen, who have to deal with probably the mosb cunning troub in tho world, with few exceptions, all believo in the imitation theory, and their creed is being more and more accepted on northern and western streams, where for many years the great majority of fly fishermen, while being particular as to size and colour, concerned themselves bub little as to the cxacb fly which happened to be abroad. Troub are undoubtedly curious creatures, most difficult to understand, and the evidence broughb forward, reliab'e so far as it goes, by the supporters of the different systems is remarkably contradictory. The chalk stream fisherman will relate how one May afternoon he came down to the river and found it, to use an angler's metaphor, " simply boiling with fish." At firat he was unable to see any flics, nnd rang the changes on the various boautifully tied imitations of duns and the like which he had in his book, and all without success. Finally he seb himself to discover oh what the fish were feeding, and found that the fly was, let ua say, a pale watery dun. So a fairly good imitation of this delicate little fly was put up, and before night closed in three brace of goodly fish lay in the angler's creel. On the other hand, some fisherman of coarser fibre, who is given a day on a choice Hampshire stream, coolly sticks ou a small blue doctor, or other salmon fly, resembling nothing whatever to be found in the river,' drags it about, end secures a brace of good fish, while past masters of the arb who have been grovelling, and kneeling, and sbalking their fish like Red Indians, and placing beforatbem a mo3t perfect imitation on the finest, of tackle, come home in "the evening disquieted and fhblegs. The angler of wide experience wil l , perhaps, ab the end of many years rome to the conclusion that ib is is most unwise to be bound by any hard-and-fast rule. He will have learned thab what will kill to-day will fail to-morrow, and that on mosb rivers final" S3 of tackle and tho keeping out of sight on the part of the angler are points of greater importance than the axacb shade of tackle, or the fur used in the manufacture of the body. An interring and significant fact in tbi* connection ia that the north country fly ia very sparsely hackled, while the south country imitation has 50 times more legs than a natural insect. There are some who will nob be slow to as:erb thab of the two, the north country fly more closely resembles nature, even if ib be dressed without wings ; for a few hackles represent the delicate filmy wiug of an insect quite as well as a comparatively stout feather taken from the wing of a starling. "My fly," says the north countryman, •' is fished wet under water, aud ib is clearly visible to the fish. They see it as well as they see any food they take. If I were to dress ib in buzzy fuzzy fa«hion es you do yours in the soubh, and siuk it, the fish v.ould ab once recognize tho lure and have nothing to say to ib. But in these few hackles they Und a sufficiently good representation of the insect, and do not hesitate to rise and be hooked." " But," says the south countryman in reply, " my fly has to float, and the more hackles it has the better it floats, and that the fish take ib when floating is beyond question, so ib musb be a good fly." If there is any deduction to be drawn from these two lines of reasoning ib is th it a fly which floats ou tho surface of the water is noo so distinctly seen by the fish as ono which is sunk beneath the surface, and without much doubt this is so. The north countryman more c!osely represents a live ' insect ; the soubh countryman more correctly places his sufficiently close imitations of the live insect. Writers on fly fishing frequently make an attempt to classify the flies used on lochs, calling them "heather-moth," and so forth, but beyond much question the great mvjority of flies used on the lakes of ScolJand and Ireland bear little or no resemblance to the natural flies found on those wateis. Lake trout are often caught wibh an enotmous black Palmer with a white tip, which has been dressed for chub fishing in the Thames. They take large Alexandras, small Alexandras, red Palmers, soldier Palmers, and salmon flies of all kinds. In those few rivera where the troub are sbill unsophisticated flies of almost any pattern will be taken by fi<sh, but even in such waters tha angler will some day come to a clear still pool and tail to citch the fi-h which he sees rising therein until he can place before them delicately and with precision f a fairly good imitation of the natural insect on which they are feeding. Even entomological fly li>hors, if we may so call them, do not hesitate to follow some of the lessons which they learn from anglers who care little aboub the fly on the water, considering that the points of consequence are the size of the fiy audits tone ; thab is to say, using in heavy water big flies with strong contrasts of colour, and in clear water on fine bright days small flies brightly coloured, as wibh gold tinsel, sandy hackles, pale wing», and so forbh For example, on the Itchen and the Test there are fauoy flies which are largely used, such, for instance, aa that invaluable fly, the Wicfchini Fancy, which is found to kill best on bright sunny days In concluding these few remarks ou a very large subject, reference should be made to the curious fact that when trout are feeding ravenously on one particular kind of fiy they will, not sometimes but often, more readily take an artificial fly of an entirely different char^cber than an inferior imitabion of those on which they are preying. — The Field.

• . • Major Carlisle forwards a letter to the Field from Lord Gormanston, Governor of Tasmania, which runs as follows : — "My dear C ,—, — As I know you are a correspondent of the Field, aud interested always in anything appertaining to fishing, I write to let you know that I have just returned from a trip to the Great Lake in the centre of this island, and to give you some faint idea of the wonderful sport to be had there, but unfortunately only with bait spinning, and nob wibh the fly. I extracb from the book kepb by the policem.m in charge of the fishing up there. One party of two gentlemen, between March 1 aud March 25 iLclutive, but excepting Sundays, caughb 51 troub, weighing 6201b, the average weight being 121b, the largest fish 19lb. One of this party caught 8 trout in one day to his single rod, weighing 1051b, and on the same day two other rods, fishing wibh him, caughb 7 trout, weighing 69£lb, or 174£1b for three rods in one day. Several other good catches have been made, inch an 2131b to two rods in six days, and others which I will aot trouble you with."

■ *Mr Treweek, of Lumsden, on Thursday caught in the Oreti River a very fine trout (female) scaling — two hours after capture — 13Jlb, length 31£iu, girth 17in. It is the largest fish ever hooked up thab way. The fish was in excel 'eat condition, and took about an hour to land.

• . • The fishing season for trout;, perch, and tench closed on the 22nd inst.

He was trying to tell them tho story, It was broken by coughs and by spits, And the points of it came very slowly, By starts as it were and by fits. And they said, "You should take something for it, Something that is wholesome and pure," And he said " I'll be all right to-morrow, For I'm taking Woods's Great Peppermint Cuke."