DISGRUNTLED FISHERMAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3802, 25 January 1927, Page 27

DISGRUNTLED FISHERMAN.

LACK OF INFORMATION. AN AMERICAN’S COMPLAINT. • AUCKLAND, January 20. The Tourist Department is criticised by Mr Frederick K. Burnham, of San Francisco, who, with Mr J. Cox Webb, of San Diego, is going to the Zane Grey fishing camp six miles from Ruesell. “Although I have constantly fished off Catalina Island in the lower Gulf of California, the Caribbean Sea, off Florida, and Alaska, and even off Norway for a great number of years,” said Mr Burnham, “I did not hear of your deep-sea grounds until Mr Grey became interested and decided to visit New Zealand. Mr Grey could not obtain any definite information about the grounds, the weather conditions and the like, so we regarded his trip last year as a pioneering one. “When his book dealing with New Zealand fishing was sold in the States it created a greater furore than has any other sporting book. It absolutely astounded us. Immediately we made inquiries from the New Zealand agent in San' Francisco for accurate information about the grounds, how to get to them, the weather conditions, the costs, the best period in which to fish and other necessary information for anglers intending to travel so far for game. The agent was very indefinite. Even our sporting magazines had no New Zealand advertiseemnts in them. We had to rely upon Mr Grey for all our information. Here is a point you seem to overlook: The New Zealand fishermen are generally men who fish merely for, say, two weeks out of the year. It is a holiday for them. They. are content to ‘rough it,’ but we Americans make a hobby of our fishing, and as we. fish year in and year out we do not enjoy ‘roughing’ it. We are prepared to pay for whatever we use. We want good accommodation and cooking conveniences. .We are accustomed to having it in America, and unless we can have similar comfort here we will not bother travelling so far. “I. understand that splendid, but limited facilities, have been erected at our intended base camp, but even if they were to be trebled they would not be sufficient to house the American anglers who will come over next year. You do not seem to realise that you have the greatest deepsea grounds in the world, nor do you ‘boost’ them overseas. When we return to America we cannot act as tourist .agents for New Zealand, although, doubtless, we will hand on a great deal of information. We spend large amounts of money when we are here, yet we are more or less neglected by your Tourist Department. It does not seem to be able to give us accurate information —we get it mostly from private folks.

“It is. estimated that this trip of Mr Grey’s is costing him roughly £45,000; that is, including the commissioning of his yacht and its return to California. Even with our modest gear we reckon the trip ■will cost us £l5OO each. For that outlay we expect something in return. The actual fishing is a pleasure for us, and we only ask suitable accommodation. “But the greatest handicap,” concluded Mr Burnham, “is the lack of information from the Tourist Department. For instance, we came over prepared to do salmon fishing down in the South Island, but inquiries in the most likely quarters in Wellington failed to give us anything definite to plan on. A private enthusiast told us that the salmon were not taking the fly very well, so we cancelled our intended visit to the south on the strength of that. We were naturally very disappointed, but we could not obtain any encouraging statements. If we decide to visit South Africa for big game hunting the South African Government has accurate information in most of our sporting publications, and in its agents’ offices in the States, but New Zealand sadly neglects to tell the sportsmen and anglers overseas what it has to offer. It is to be regretted, for you have the greatest fishing country in the world. I only wish we had the same number of fish, and the climatic and weather conditions, off Catalina Island.”