TOMAHAWK

Otago Witness, Issue 3803, 1 February 1927, Page 27

TOMAHAWK

FISHING IN THE LAGOON. ... - A By Wateb Rat. Tomahawk cannot be regarded as quite an ideal place to fish. The true angler prefers solitude and cares not to bo disturbed with the incessant honk of motor horns , and swish of tyres, ■ nor, if pursuing his art at night,' to Be dazzled at frequent intervals with blinding'car head-lights and accompanied intil “the sma’ ’oors ayont twal ’ with the harsh blare of jazz music from gramophones. How utterly antagonistic and . diametrically opposed all these accompaniments are to those usually associated with the gentle act, the babbling stream, the lapping waters on the loch side, the bleating of sheep and the lowing of oxen, - ‘ the wheetle o’ the whaup!” There are sounds to be heard there which discordant though they may be to some are much more musical to the angler than those abhorrent sounds we mention. The bull frog may not be musical, nor yet the - wild duck, but they are much to be preferred to the Chinese crackers I heard on Hogmanay or “ The Wellington Post ” ground out of a green-painted horn. What is the attraction at the lagoon? It cannot be said to be the walk out to it nor yet the home-coming. There is nothing in the journey attractive to an angler. Were it a nice country walk out to Tomahawk probably it would be more frequented by Waltonians, but they are glad to get there and back, with all the impedimenta, by means of tram or such like, leaving to others of a mundane temperament the monotonous parade of pavements. Then it is certainly the fish which attract. Assuredly much enjoyment can be had in the Leith water with fly catching fish mostly to be returned and a few of them takeable, while in Sullivan’s Dam and the Southern Reservoir sport is slow and the weather is of the most uncertain and unsuitable. A brief sample of angling conditions around the city shows certainly that Tomahawk bears the palm for those work weary anglers seeking recreation, who have not at. their disposal the means of taking them farther afield. Dunedin cannot be regarded as a good angling centre unless one possesses tho means of locomotion which nowadays annihilates distance and allows one to contemplate 60 miles with less consternation than one does a walk of four or six miles. But how much better might not Tomahawk be for the fisher, if not for the fish. I believe that several weeks ago an attack was made on the weeds and some slight improvement was made. What it was like before, heaven only knows, for now, of about 80 acres, I suppose, of lake surface, that which remains fishable from bank and boat combined hardly exceeds eight acres. In a rather cursory and perfunctory examination of the water we find the predominating weeds are pond weed and duck weed. Neither of them stand high in. rank in the list of acquatic plants desirable in a trout fishery. In fact, in almost any case they would be banned from 'trout waters. The onlv good function they perform in Tomahawk is what could be equally well down by'better fish-food producing plants—that is, the function of aeration of ilia water. Pond weed, which is ' prevalent, while providing a good sanctuary for the fish, is not suitable as a fish food plant, such as watercress v.'itn all its fine qualities for harbouring and nourishing crustaceans. Neither does pond weed provide the best accommodation on which aquatic flies deposit eggs and on which the larval develop and hatch. The duck weed, though providing a good ground on which fresh water snails might deposit their spat, show ho evidence of the occurrence of this nor have I found any such mollusc in any of the fish I have taken. Possibly water snails do not exist there, though they could do so, and thrive too, for the water, judged by taste, has no high salinity. Of five fish taken, from 141 b to 2|lb, four had had a liberal supply of flies, fly larvai, and “cockabully.” In one instance, what appeared to be an almost exclusive vegetarian diet had been partaken of for some previous time. The stomach and gut were crammed with vegetable matter to the exclusion of all else except very little larval. This is not unknown, but is rather uncommon among trout and probably occurs only at very widely distributed and irregular intervals. The majority of fish from this water which I have seen (and that is but recently, though there have been a fair number and sample of them) were remarkably well ordered specimens having a great depth and well arched back. A few were rather lanky and below what is considered good condition. The latter are not such lusty fighters, as is to be expected. I am informed they belong to a class known locally as “stripped fish” —that is, fish which in the previous winter were taken in the Leith while running from salt water to spawn, and were stripped there and transferred to Tomahawk, instead of being returned to the stream. They are said to have not quite recovered from the spawning as they would have if they had been allowed egress to the salt water again where feeding is probably richer than in the lagoon. Possibly this is so, but certainly those other heavy fish taken at-Tomahawk which show' such fine proportions, if turne'd in as fry or yearlings, never having had sea feeding, also demonstrate' what remarkably fine feeding the lagoon provides. I should say that age for age the migrating trout would outstrip in weight one which spent its life in the lagoon, but even they appear to show remarkably fine growth throughout life. None which I have yet taken seem to be old fish, comparatively speaking, this conclusion being based on general appearance such as spot markings, dentition, an<J a somewhat poor, unpractised observation and comparison of their scales with those of home fish. A ferox taken from any of the home lochs is invariably an old fish and always shows an infinitely greater number of spots than any large well-nourished much younger fish. Tomahawk, with all its drawbacks, has its compensations. A mild evening always shows a wonderful hatch all over and a marvellous rise in inaccessible places. If the weeds were cleared all round the margin for a distance which could be covered by wading and casting, even then sufficient weed-covered area would remain as a sanctuary, for fish. The introduction of swans would help materially to the keeping of weeds under control, and, though

some anglers may have apprehensions, I do not think it has ever been proved that swans do damage among trout, large or small. Were swans to breed on the water I 'would have more fear for the cygnets during their early days among voracious trout than for any fish in the water.