IS FISHING A SPORTING HOBBY?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 3 January 1930, Page 10

IS FISHING A SPORTING HOBBY?

HEAVY RODS SHOULD BE DONE AWAY WITH. (Written for the “Star.”) In these days, when fishing is being brought to a fine art, anglers are discarding the heavy rods, play a game of skill with the fish, using light cane rods and fine, strong tackle. There are two sides to every story, and both may be partly right, but the man who uses unduly light casts or lines, under the guise of sportsmanship, is in reality, no sportsman at all. The true angler tests his skill and cunning against a harassed and witless fish with a light rod, and then if the tackle breaks, the blame is upon himself, and not on the fish. There are those who deliberately use a frail line for game-fish, “ just to give the fish a chance,” whereas they are really being unthinkably cruel. If he breaks away the fisherman smiles and says " Good luck to you,” and the fish, upon which the blessing is bestowed, goes away with the hook festering in his mouth for weeks —perhaps to die of starvation. If the hook is in his gullet, he will die of a certainty, but often after a painful lingering of weeks. Many an angler has landed a fish and then let him go again, but in doing so has been the cause of a lingering death for the fish. By handling any fish with dry hands the protecting slime is broken, fungus attacks the victim and he perishes days or perhaps weeks after being liberated. Many anglers of to-day are using the barbless hooks, which really do give the fish a sporting chance, for if the angler slackens for a second with these hooks the fish gets his chance. If the fisherman keeps his line taut no more, than the usual number of game fish are lost, but by slackening the line, the greedy little undersized fellow is no more than pricked, and with a flirt of his tail he darts off like a flash, rejoicing in his fancied escape from the strange monster whose shadow darkened the water like a cloud. The joke is on the fish, and the anglei can laugh heartily, while the fish, none the worse for his experience, will live to furnish sport on some future date. The heavy rod and the primitive barbed hook will soon have slipped back into the past, and the light rod and barbless hook will allow the angler to go to bed with a clean conscience, and those who now regard the angler as “an inhumane monster,” will be obliged to recognise him as a first-class sportsman.