ANGLING

Southland Times, Issue 22498, 7 December 1934, Page 5

ANGLING

(By

“Matuku.”)

The streams continue very low and clear and in the rain-fed streams the trout seem to be sluggish and disinclined to feed in the day time. The best chance of getting a bag will be to resort to night fishing. In the streams near the towns the large fish seem to turn more and more to night feeding. Night fishing is an art in itself and with practice an angler can fish as well by night as by day. Some anglers claim to be able to fish with the dry fly after dark, but it is most difficult to see the fly and fish are often missed. A wet fly fished down stream with a taut line will prove most successful and the angler at once feels the rise and hooks the fish. The angler can use a heavy cast, say IX, as with the strong cast a better control can be kept over the fish. A large fly on a No. 8 or No. 10 hook can be used although on some nights a very small fly is more successful. The fish will nften be found feeding out in the shallow ripples after dark and it is not difficult to approach fairly close to them. Most night fishers use a “bully” which proves quite successful after dark, but a fly is often equally successful. The Oreti is well stocked and although most of the fish got are on the small side there are some larger fish to be got. These large fish in the Oreti seem well educated and are difficult to get in the daytime. The average size of the fish in the Hedgehope and Waimea remains astonishingly high, although these streams are so intensively fished. A bag of fish from either of the above streams taken on the dry fly will average about 21b being as good an average as when these streams were first fished four or five years ago. The more intensive fishing of these streams does not seem to have caused a drop in average size as might have been expected from the experiences in other streams. The Waiau is now getting into excellent order and some fish were got < last week-end on the dry-fly, in the vicinity of Clifden and the Wairaki. The north-wester, however, interfered with dry-fly fishing, making casting very difficult. The floods during the winter have shifted large areas of the bed of the Waiau and spoiled some of the best fishing pools. The Waiau fish are feeding freely on the Green Manuka Beetle and are in excellent condition. Quite a number of rainbow are being caught in the lower Waiau and it seems obvious that these fish are thoroughly established and are spawning in the lower Waiau, as young rainbow are caught each year. The Mararoa contains the usual large fish and numbers of them are got on the dry-fly. The big bags of a year or two ago are not so numerous but this is probably due to the increased number of anglers disturbing the water and putting the fish off the feed. Bags up to 5 or 6 fish weighing up to 51bs were got last week-end. In a recent issue of the English Fishing Gazette a correspondent drew attention to a trouble for French anglers which we are fortunately free from here. Their Ministry (which links fish with agriculture) suddenly decided that the habit of private selection in the matter of fishing rods could properly be treated with official disapproval and proposes to impose a “standard” rod. Anyone wishing to use his own discretion in the choice of a rod is to be mulcted in the cost of a special permit. It seems merely an ingenious way of camouflaging a rod tax, the authorities knowing well that anglers would pay, not gladly perhaps, but still pay to avoid the rod designed by the Government. Should such a condition ever reach this country what rod would be chosen as the standard? There is a tendency in New Zealand on the part of our research workers to question the value of artificial hatcheries and to suggest that natural reproduction will serve to amply keep up our supplies of fish. Mr Hobbs, oi the Central Committee staff, has published a paper in which he makes the above suggestions and gives his investigations in support of his suggestions In this connection it is interesting to read an actual experiment by Dr. Knut Dahl, the famous Norwegian fisheries expert. A certain lake in Norway was fished every year from 1914 to 1931 and practically every fish was taken each year by means of small meshed nets and its age ascertained by scale readings. Mr Dahl found that by liberating an average of 5700 fry a year he increased the average number of fish from 108 to 207 a year. Summing up his results Dr. Dahl writes: —

“From this statement we easily see that when we trust to natural reproduction the average value of the year class has been only 54 kilos, Very like the previous known annual yield ol the lake. The year classes, however, which have been influenced by the addition of artificially hatched fry have an average value of 120 kilos We get a gross difference in favour of hatched fry of 66 kilos. We have indeed more than redoubled the value of the year class.” Dr. Dahl is publishing an elaborate paper on his experiment and it will no doubt be available to English readers shortly. The above notes are taken from a preliminary article by him in The Salmon and Trout Magazine. March 1934. Dr. Dahl’s belief in the value of artificial stocking agrees with the views of the hatchery officals in Southland, who are firmly of opinion that the intensive stocking of recent years is justified by the results obtained. The Lure of the Open. Away back in the beginning of things, when our forefathers wore the skins of wild beasts, wresting their food from unwilling Nature with rude implement and weapon, they perforce lived close to Nature. Remaining to, us. through countless thousands of “gobetweens,” is that love for the open that desire for the Wild. Here, then, is found the true attractivity of fishing. To hear the soft wind sough through the leafless branches in early spring caressing the willow-cats until they arch their furry back in delight, is the call that sends us forth to observe, religiously, “Opening Day.” The insect life of June, the green trees, the upspringing flowers, the songs of multitudinous birds—those are the things which call us out; not the desire to catch fish. Every true angler is an embryonic poet, feeling things which he cannot express, seeing things which he cannot describe. He who fishes for fish is not an angler, but a mere fisherman He who angles that he may become proficient with latest wrinkles ol tackle is not an angler but an experimentalist. He who seeks to collect samples of everything in tackle is not an angler but a faddist. The true angler partakes somewhat of, the natures of the foregoing, but, first of all, he is a lover of God’s Out o’ Doors.—From “Trout Lore,” by O. W. Smith.