HOW A LAKE WAS STOCKED

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1931, Page 5

HOW A LAKE WAS STOCKED

STRANGE FISH.

THE EXPLANATION,

AUCKLAND, June 23

A project to stock Lake 'Pupuke with trout, or, rather, to restock the lake, for once before trout were liberated in it, has been before- the public for some time. The first time-:- allegedly, only trout were liberated, but this was not a sufficient explanation for one angler, who, to his own amazement, landed from the'lake a John Dory-shaped carp, marked like a trout.

The explanation has been given bv Captain R. Mackenzie Cliffe, now a marine expert, " who in his - boyhood, used to help his father look after the first hatchery and fish ponds in Auckland. His father was curator of the fish pools, which, said ' the captain, were situated not .in the Domain Dardens, but in a gully near Cai'law Park. -

“Well, now I will tell you about Lake Pupuke,” he writes. My father had to take a batch of trout up to Matamata, and Mr Edwin Harrow was very impatiently asking for some trout for -Lake Pupuke. tinder the' circumstances there was nothing else for it but for me to take the batch of trout to Takapuna. So, after putting them (by the way. they were a mixture of English brown trout and American brook trout) .into three large cans, ,my father departed with his batch for the Auckland station. “A GOOD IDEA.”

“On arrival he “sent IPs conveyance back to take my batch to the ferry boat. Thus ‘I was left in charge at the hatcherv. I walked round, and l thought .it would be a good idea to put a few carp among the trout. Getting a. net; I soon'had about half a. , dozen half-grown carp, and I placed them with the trout. Then a brilliant idea came. The week before we had been out to Lake St. John, and secured about 400 catfish, each about 13 inches long. -I thought that it would be a grand -idea to add a few of these to «. crowd. I did so, and now > niy . -cans contained, .' trout,- carp,, and ; cattish, shortly afterwards we . went to the; ferry. We shipped our load and were, met,at Devonport by Mr 'Harrow. We liberated our batch just' below where the Lake- House stood. - ...

“So that is the story of the liberation of ‘trout’ -in Lake Pupuke.