SALMON AT LAST.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2773, 6 January 1872, Page 3

SALMON AT LAST.

Sir Robert Officer, the indefatigable chairman of the Tasmanian Salmon Commissioners, has all along stuck up for the success of the salmon experiment of his Colony. It would appear that his predictions have now been verified. As the subject is one of great interest to the colonies, we give the Avgms Launceston correspondent’s account of the finding of a ‘‘true salmon” in the Derwent:- . A fish has been caught new m these waters, and though the scivfiuis are divided about it, as usual, I am of those who are decidedly of opinion that it is a grilse, hatched in the; Plenty, and that when it offered itself as a sacrifice to sustain the credit of the acclimatisers, the vote for the salmon ponds being still in question in Parliament, it was on its way from the sea to its native river to spawn. It was found a few mornings ago in a boat moored in the Derwent, almost under the windows of Sir Robeit Officer’s house at New Norfolk. It had been leaping in the night, and an unfortunate spring carried it into the boat, from which, as the mud showed, it had made many unsuccessful efforts to leap out again. The finder, Mr Cooper, sent it down to the city for inspection. It was admitted that no fish altogether like it had ever before been taken in the waters of Tasmania. One gentleman was not satisfievl as to its true character, because its teeth did not exactly accord with those of the salmon, as given by piscatorial authorities. Another pronounced it to be a river trout, whose color had become changed by the brackish water in which it was found. A third—who is the owner but not the possessor of the only copy of Yarrell’s “History of British Fishes” in the Colony, but who does not at present know the name of the gentleman who had borrowed it from his fi?h-shop without asking leave—would not believe it to be a river trout, and pronounced if a salmon trout, or sea-trout proper. Mr Cooper, who found the fish, was for many years resident in Ayrshire, where he lauded many a salmon and grilse from the pools and salmon runs of the classic Doom He states that he has no doubt whatever as to the real character of the stianger It was a grilse, of between'4lb and Slbs in weight. When found, and the mud washed away, it Showed the pure olive-coloured back and silvery belly of a fish newly from the sea. It was found full of spawn, and was therefore on its way up the stream to the spawning beds,[following the instinct of the species. Its eyes were large, and placed far forward, as in the salmon , it had the fins of the grilse, and the shape and tail of that handsome fish. It was put, moreover, to the crucial test of the dinner-table, and its flesh was of the true color and flavor. It was a veritable grilse, and a finely fleshed one too! I cannot imagine any ground for believing it to have been a wandering river trout. It had little resemblance to that fish, and I never before heard of river trout being found ip blackish tion, unless it partook of the lunacy prevalent about New Is’oi folk, it would have gone up instead of down the river, from whence it came. Though I have doubts in accepting Sir Robert Officer's statement that salmon are continually “ running up and down” the Derwent, big fish of some kind are undoubtedly often seen during the day, and oftener heard during the night, where this grilse was caught; and lam now therefore a believer in the success of the acclimatisers, and in the absolute fact of salmon being ip the iferwenji.