FISHING INDUSTRY.

Wairarapa Age, 18 December 1919, Page 3

FISHING INDUSTRY.

Interesting Information. ! | BY EXPERT FISHERMAN. | Mr d'Oridant, of Lake Forry, I writes as follows to the "Age":—l ' started fishing in this colony in 1895. i First in Wellington, where we used to get 8d per bundle of fish, a bundle roughly consisting of 7 to 81bs. This was for all fish except wareho, which were (id, and haptika, for which ;' we got Cd up to lOlbs, Is up to 201bs, and Is 6d .each afterwards. I then went to the French Pass, where we got Is Gd per dozen for blue cod, when not more than 14 dozen a sack, and 2s 6d per dozen of not more than 8 dozen per sack; other fish, Gd per bundlo. I was fishing there for about four years, and during that timo our-average catch per day was about 25 to 30 dozen bluo cod. Now tho xnen aro lucky if they average 10 dozen. From the French Pass, I went to 'Nelson, where at tho timo there" were plenty of schnapper, flounders, garfish, kawhai and herrings, and tho prices were schnapper 4s dozen, flounders 2s 6d dozen, garfish 4b per basket of 28 dozen, herrings 4s per basket of 20 dozen. At that timo wo could catch more than we could sell. It was nothing to get 20 »to 50 dozen schnapper at one haul of the not, and wo could get from 25 to 85 dozen flounders for a day's fishing. Now schnapper are ill per dozen, and hardly any to bo got. The cause of this is the continual trawling of Golden Bay by the "Norah Niven." Golden Bay is especially one of tho great breeding grounds for fish. In the six years I stayed at Nelson, from 1895 to 1905, the price of schnapper only rose la per dozen. All .these prices I am quoting were the prices paid to the fishermen. At the time f> and for several years after, there waß no fish market at Wollingtdn, but there wero markets at Duncdin and Christchurch. In those times a fisherman agreed to sell his whole catch to a fishmonger, who waß Buppoßed to take all ho could catch, but in reality he only d:d so as long as it suited him, as if fish camo in freely there waß always some excuse; also, if you were sending fish from, say, tho French Pass, Nelson or Kapiti you generally had from one-third to lose, the fish being supposed to be bad. Also another thing that made things worse was the. r quantity of Italians, Portu- . gueso, Austrians, etc., that canie here. These men Yvould take almost anything for their fish, and when they j had two or three hundred pounds j they would go back to their owii i countries. In 1896 there were as j many Englishmen fishing out of j Wareho Bay as Italians; now, I bej lievo there is not ono single Eng* ' lishman. j Things were so bad in 1905 that I I shifted to Waikanae, and the prices j then ruling for fish were 8d per. bundle all round, except blue cod, whicb were lOd, and hapuka 2s Gd each. A jFpir living could be made at those price's, and*l stayed there foui | years, when I went to Lyttelton to j take charge of a trawler. Wo were then fishing for tho Christchurch market, and the prices for, flounders and soles (averngo weight, flounders lib and soles l£lb each) was from Gd to 12s 6d per dozen, and we did fairly well at those prices. Unfortunately, about this time hapuka were found off Timaru, and in about two years tho fishing fleet increased from one launch to fifteen. They were manned by farmers, ex-publichns, and I beleive an ex-"bobby. n The boats were averaging from 50 to 150 hapuka a day, and consequently groper fell to as low sometimes as 5s per cask of 14. Also, largo quantities wore , supposed to have beon sent to tho destructor. I know I only got onooighth out of two lots of hapuka numbering 144. A very bad regime was instituted at Christchurch market in this way. Instead of the auctioneer selling a few fish for each man, ho would sometimes sell all one man's and not sell any of another, especially if tho other had complainod in any way. I had gone to Timaru in 1909 just at this time, so I went to Oamaru, in spite of the fact that Oamaru fishermen were under a great disadvantage over the trains. The Timaru men sent their fish by tho second express leaving Timaru at 4 p.m., but tho Oamaru men were forced to send theirs by the first express which left Oamaru at 11 a.m. Wo repeatedly qsked the Railway Department to change this, and I went to the Hon. Mr Millar, but wo could not got it changed, The standing price at Oamaru at this time was groper id per lb, blue cod 2Jd per lb (both headed and gutted), bam/eouta 2s 0d j dozen, mold 5s doaen, red cod Is 0d ' dozen. We could have done fairly '

well at theso prices if wo could hare sold all we could have caught, but there were too many boats. Tho troublo about this timo was tho geenral adoption of oil engines. Thus anything with hands and feet went fishing, ex butchers, slaughtermen, shearers, etc., in many cases only going fishing when their own trade was slack, and thus making things bad for everybody but the salesman, principally, and in a way the retailer. From then on I was up and down tho coast of the South Island till two years ago. Fish, I find, aro getting scarcer every year. The price the fisherman now gets is certainly much better than in years gone by, but the cost of working lias increased at tho same time. For years, wo paid 9s to 10s 6d per case for benzine, now it is 23s Gd; lines Is 8d each, now 7s- 6d to 10s each; twine, Is Cd to Is 8d lb, now 9s to 10s lb. Also, we have to bo constantly getting larger launches, and they are nearly treble and quadruple the price. Wo are not allowed to form a un : on, i.e., the men who own and work their boats. The Labour Department saythat there are two parties in a boat —the skipper, who is the master, and his mato, who 'is tho union. Now, this is rot. Both men share alike. Tho only difference is that if the skipper is tho owner of the launch he gets a certain percentage for it. The balance is divided between the crew. Thus, say, a launch takes 3s in the £; a catch of £2O, two r en in the boat, would work out fihus: Benzine and. lubricating oil, say, £1; cartage, etc., ss; eases, etc., ss; boat's share, £3; total, £4 10s, Each man in this case would receive £7 15s. Now, I say that when men work, in this wayj they are purely pieceworkers, and can form a union. Also, strange to pay,the men who man the> Napier erawlers in just this way are allowed to form a union, and are undeY an arbitration award. Again, ono of tho reason I am against trawl-1 ing by steamers in shore is that a! big vessel make a clean sweep of, everything that comes in front of the j net. The nets (trawler) are made of different sized mesh, so as to allov j tho small fish to escapo. But it does not act in fact like this, as the net j is stretched so tight, hardly anything gets through. I would allow motor boats to travel inshore as they cannot tow ao largo nets, nor can they tow so fasti and also their nets are much lighter and do not kill all the fish like a steam trawler. It must also bo borne in mind that New Zealand is just tho top of a mountain, and that there aro only a few miles of bottom around the coast on which fish can live. This is tho fish which live on the bottom. Schnapper are rarely caught over 120 fathoms, flounders 30 fathoms, soles tho eamo, hapuka and kingfish up to 800 fathoms, blue ood up to 120 fathoms. Now, these fish aro wlyit I call local fish, only inhabiting certain grounds, and If you fish tlieao grounds out olean there is nowhere from which fish can como again. Fish like wareho, kawhai and barraeouta aro on a different plane, as they are floatilg fish (school fish), and thoy would ndt bo caught out so easily, as a trawler does not catch them. If w© are in this country going to preserve our fish, tho Government must see that we a proper class of man, and recognise that a fisherman is a tradesman just as much as a carpenter or engineer. ]