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Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 130, 1 March 1928, Page 11

Fishing in the Wairau, about a couple of miles from the Bar, Mrs. J. I McDonald recently lauded a splendid 81b. fish, which was believed to be a qumnat salmon (says the “Marlborough Express”). The head and certain other portions of the fish were handed over to Mr. F. Mogridge, secretary of the Marlborough Acclimatisation Society, who forwarded them to Air. A. Hefford, the Chief Inspector of Fisheries. Mr. Hefford reports that the remains are not those of a quinnat, but are those of a fine specimen of a sea-run trout. In tile course of a letter to Mr. Mogridge, the Chief Inspector gives some interesting information which may assist anglers to identify the quinnat. He says that the branchi ostegal rays (the bones resembling umbrella ribs under the throat) number from 10 to 13 in the case of the trout family, but in the quinnat they number from 15 or 16 to 18 or 19. The roof of the month of a qiinnat is always blackish and the anal tin (the one behind the vent) has at least 16 rays, while the trout never has mure than 13 aud usually only 11 or I’2. The Department is particularly anxious to secure definite evidence that quinnat are beginning to run in the Marlborough rivers.