LARGE TROUT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 263, 30 June 1932, Page 6

LARGE TROUT

ENGLISH CONTROVERSY OVER DOMINION'S RECORD FISH. LONDON, Saturday. Mr. G. N. Temple, of Warminster, has started a correspondence in the "Morning Post" on a well-worn topic. The report from New Zealand of the capture in the Tongariro River of a trout of over 251b recalls to him an incident of the early 1890's. "Fishing in Hall's Creek, ncar Southbridge, Canterbury, New Zealand," he says, "a Mr. Beetham, the R.M. of those parts, landed a 26pound brown trout which was, I believe, frozen and sent Home in a block of ice to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. I lcnew the Canterbury rivers well in those days, and killed many heavy trout myself, up to 17h lb, in the Avon. "It will be interesting to know if 261b is the record for New Zealand trout (fario). The streams running into Lake Ellesmere Selwyn, Hall's Creek etc, were noted for large fish, which were generally caught at night with live bait." Mr. George Cromie, of Castle Bailey, Bridgewater, writes in reply to the query: "To my knowledge," he says, "the record trout of New Zealand was one of 321b, taken in one of the lakes which form the sources of the Ashburton River in Canterbury. One of 261b was taken in the Marlborough Province, in a river called the Opawa, if I remember rightly. "I myself killed a 191b trout in the Rangitata, and saw one talcen from the same river which weighed 231b. During one night's fishing at the Rangitata mouth I once took eight trout of a total weight of 851b, and on another occasion over a week-end on the Rakaia I took eleven trout weighing just on 1001b. All these were taken on artificial minnow, the water being very swift and heavy. "This was in the years about the beginning of the century, before the salmon and the rainbow trout were