ANGLING

Southland Times, Issue 22758, 7 December 1935, Page 19

ANGLING

(By

“Matuku.”)

The month of December usually ushers in the dry-fly season in Southland and this year is apparently no exception. So far this season the wet fly angler and the angler with natural or artificial minnow in tidal waters have had the best of the fishing. The tidal waters, particularly the Oreti at Otatara, have been continuously fished by numerous anglers during the last two months and some hundreds of fish have been taken out of these waters ranging up to 8 lb. This fishing is handy to town and a man can cycle out to the river in half an hour. It is to be hoped that this locality will continue to hold a good stock of fish, as it provides angling for those not fortunate enough to own a motor car.

It is strange to note that quite small trout, not more than five or six inches in length, are caught down at the bottom end of Otatara. This seems to indicate that some trout migrate down to tidal waters when very small. These little fish are presumably just one year old, and they must have migrated several miles down stream in their first year. The larger streams were carrying rather much water last week-end and did not provide good fishing. The Aparima was above normal, although fairly clear. Some fish were got on the Black Gnat fished dry and the wet fly also accounted for a few fish. On the whole, however, conditions were unfavourable and most bags were light. Anglers who fish the Aparima consistently report that it is carrying a good stock of fish of fair average size. An angler who fished the Waikaia during the week-end reports that it was carrying rather much water, but should be in excellent order this weekend. A few fish were got on both the wet and dry fly, but. the larger fish were not feeding. Most of the snow has now melted off the back country and the Waikaia will be in excellent order at Christmas time. Any angler visiting this stream will find the best fishing between Glenaray station and McKinnell’s Bridge. Further up in the bush at Piano Flat the fish do not seem to be so numerous.

There was a good rise on the Hedgehope on Sunday, but it seemed difficult to get the correct dry fly on which the fish were feeding. The best bags were got by fishing a wet fly upstream to the rising fish, a Dark Red Spinner proving a successful fly for this purpose. The rise on Sunday proved that the Hedgehope contains an excellent stock of fish, with quite a fair proportion of them over 21b in weight. The Mataura seems to be very muddy so far this season and practically ail the fish caught have been taken on the worm. From now on, however, fly-fishing should be successful at least in the lower waters about Wyndham and Mataura Island. The best fishing in the Mataura is generally after Christmas.

The Mimihau is reported to be yielding good sport and is the favourite resort of fly fishers from about Wyndham. The Wyndham also provides good sport, but is a more uncertain river than the Mimihau.

The lower Oreti about Oporo and the Iron Bridge should be in good order for fly fishing, either wet or di-y from now on. It is reported that the Oreti in this locality is well stocked with fair-sized fish and should give good sport for the balance of the season.

For this week-end all streams should be in good order and should provide good suppers. At a recent meeting of the Fly-Fishers’-Club Mr John Buchan was the guest of honour and in replying to the toast of his health he made a speech which is both witty and at the same time showed his enthusiasm for angling as a sport. He said: “I am greatly honoured to be your guest to-night. I am honoured, but I am also abashed, for, although I have fished with a fly since I was nine years of age, I can lay no claim either to the expert knowledge or technical skill of many of those whom I see around me. But, gentlemen, I take it that the passport to your friendship is not supreme skill or supreme knowledge, but the proper attitude of mind. To that I believe I have some claim. I would rather be by the water-side than anywhere else in the world. I remember Lord Grey of Falloden telling me once that during a hot August which he had to spend in the House of Commons, he found a remote corner where he could hear a dripping tap, and there he used to ensconce himself and shut his eyes and imagine that he was beside a Northumberland bum. That is the proper spirit. There was a famous Tweedside angler many years ago called Thomas Tod Stoddart who wrote some excellent fishing verse. A friend of his youth met him one day and asked him what was his profession. ‘Profession!’ he exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Man, I am an angler.’ I say ‘ditto’ to Mr Stoddart. “From the name of your club, I take it, if I may use an inappropriate metaphor, that ‘you cast your net wide.’ You shun the vice of specialization. You are universal in your appeal. Your basis is fly-fishing—every kind of fly-fishing. May I humbly applaud your catholicity? As an angler I am of the school of my old friend Hugh Sheringham. I like to catch fish by any legitimate method. (Laughter). I have even dabbled in illegitimate methods, for at the age of sixteen, on Tweedside, I was arrested for poaching salmon by burning the water. (Loud laughter). The result was that when I stood for Parliament for that county just before the war I had the poaching vote to a man. (Renewed laughter). Even in flyfishing I must confess to a lack of fastidiousness. My aim is to catch fish, and I am ready to fish my flies, wet or dry or as a nymph, whichever is the most hopeful method. But that, perhaps, is just because I lack a real expertness in the finer methods, just as a deerstalker, who is not very sure of himself, will avoid fancy shots. “What are the reasons why angling is such a profound passion with people like ourselves? Why more than any other sport, has it been consecrated by great literature? There are several causes. It takes us at all hours and at all seasons into the secret recesses of nature. It provides us with a chance of peace without boredom, leisure for reflection combined with a perpetual gentle excitement. It is a sport which we can pursue to the end of our days. You cannot play Rugby football much after thirty, or attempt serious courses of mountaineering much after fifty, or stalk the high tops when your wind is short and the flesh is burdensome. But you can fish as long as your legs can support you and your arm is strong enough to cast a fly. I would add another course. Angling provides us with an intellectual exercise, the most difficult study in the world, far more intricate than Einstein’s mathematics or Professor Eddington’s physics—the psychology of fish.

“You remember a passage in Scott’s ‘St. Roman’s Well’ which I have always regarded as one of the classic laudations of our craft. It is Meg Dods who is speaking, the mistress of the Cleikum Inn, and she is describing the fraternity of anglers who used to come there to fish the Tweed: ‘They were pawky auld carles that kenned which side their bread was buttered upon. They were up in the morning—had their parritch wi* maybe a thimbleful of brandy and then awa up into the hills, eat their bit cauld meat on the heather, and come hame at e’en wi’ the creel full of coller trouts and had them to their dinner, and their quiet cogue of ale and their drop punch and were set singing their catches and glees, as they ca’d them, till ten o’clock, and then to bed, wi’ God bless ye—and what for no?’

“What for no? indeed! That is a description of the happy life. That is the ideal cherished by every honest man and I am sure that it is the ideal of this club.”