FISHING LURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 805, 28 October 1929, Page 16

FISHING LURE

Taupo-Rotorua Trout Season Opening WHAT ANGLERS REMEMBER Angling for really big New Zealand trout begins tomorrow with the opening of the season at Rotorua and Taupo Moana. Fishermen who have managed excursions into those favoured localities of Rotorua and Taupo will be regaling each other tonight with the usual stories of gigantic spotted trout and mammoth rainbow ones. This retelling of what might have been is mankind’s natural inclination, as reflected in fishermen, to fence before approaching most questions of importance. Openings of seasons are that way. Rotorua and Taupo take the imagination of anglers; tonight they will be incited to fervour. Any angler will tell an inquirer that fishing fervour does not die. There would be an assurance that angling enthusiasm will be as high as ever on May 31, when the season at Rotorua and Taupo closes. For instance, trout taken from Taupo last season averaged seven pounds in weight. This season anglers will scarcely keep their excitement within limits until they know if the seasonal average has increased. These announcements of phenomenal weights are broadcast throughout the world. Whether it is sheer local pride or not, it is effective propaganda. Responsible Englishmen and Americans succumb to the subtle tale told in figures of the weights of trout. Because a trout at Tokaanu, New Zealand, is 50 per cent, fatter than a trout in a Welsh stream, anglers will leave the United Kingdom to travel 12,000 miles to prove the correctness of the claim. Such is propaganda. Sullen-looking stuffed trout specimens, hauled from remote New Zealand rivers, are known to grace mantelpieces of occasional angling clubs of England. But, the charm of the sport. . . . There is beauty in the silences of a lakeside, in the changing colours of lake depths, in the coolness of bush j streams. Zane Grey was enchanted by the same thing. Camp life, the atmosphere of Tokaanu, has its power., too. What angler would not answer to the attraction of Taupo or Rotorua? This season, early fishing will be improved because the trout have spawned six weeks sooner than last year. In its expectation of more overseas visitors the Government Tourist Department will open a new bureau at Taupo. A post office has been provided at Turangi.