ANGLING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143672, 16 December 1911, Page 8

ANGLING.

(By “March Brown.”)

The weather for fishing purposes is not yet all that could be desired, but the past two weeks have been some slight improvement upon their predecessors. The IVaiwnkaiho has not been yielding many, fish lately; different anglers have secured an odd fish at times, but no largo bags have been made. Mr. E. S. Bayley, however, took two nice rainbows last week in the vicinity of the dairy factory, and Mr. C. M. Hill, who accompanied him, secured a splendid fish of 3!lb. from the factory pool. Mr. Bayley' has been successful in taking a good number of i'isl) from the IVaiwahaiho this season on tho fly, thus disproving the allegations made by certain anglers that it is an impossibility to induce the IVaiwakaiho fish to rise to the artificial fly. The fish, I understand, were killed in every instance on Hardy’s Favourite. The most prolific stream in tho district is undoubtedly the Manganui, from which local anglers have recently been creeling some splendid fish. Mr. J. E. Wilson secured four good browns from this water about a fortnight ago, the largest of which weighed 41b. Mr. Bayley also recently got five nice fish from the same stream, averaging about 3Jlb. These fish were all taken on the solcskin minnow. It may interest local anglers to know that the Acclimatisation Society have recently liberated the following numbers of fry throughout the district; 10,000 rainbows in the Stony River, 2000 browns and 5000 rainbows in the Inglewood district, 2000 rainbows at Tariki, 2500 rainbows at Egmont Village, aud the IVaiwakaiho is shortly to receive 20,000 rainbows. So even if half these numbers live to reach maturity, those anglers who have so far been disappointed in trout fishing in Taranaki may hope for better things in the seasons to come. It is, says an angling writer in a Tasmanian paper, a well-ascertained fact that salmon will ascend fish ladders, but whether brown trout, which abound in our rivers, will, is questionable. Mr. E. Latout, iu tho London Field, throws some light on tho subject, as will ho seen by the following; “In the question whether trout will ascend through a fish ladder or up an inclined plane, I may state that in many parts of the world 1 have repeatedly scon salmo fario of all sizes passing up natural and artificial passes. I once had two circular dams, containing some 20,000 six-inch trout. The low dam was five feet below the first, and, to amuse myself and visitors, I made a light, portable ladder—in fact, like a real ladder, but with a back to it, and tho rungs only half-way across—and this I used to put down from pond to pond and turn the water from the intake on to it. The fish would immediately commence to crowd up it. On another occasion I had a rearing pond, full of six-months-old trout, which was supplied with water by a stream from a river which entered the pond through an 8-inch iron pipe that projected about 2ft. over the water, and about 4ft. above it when tho outlet screen was clear, but one night a gale of wind covered tho pond with dead leaves, aud in the morning the water was within a foot of tho pipe. I arrived just iu time to see the last of the trout jumping through, and later in tho day, when wo made an attempt to capture somo of them, they were found quite a mile from the'hatohcry grounds. I may say that, although 1 have seen many brown trout successfully negotiate passes found difficult by ’salmon, unlike that fish, I have never seen one return.