Gone fishing 1927-36 style

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 619, 16 January 1996, Page 8

Gone fishing 1927-36 style

Ex-Ohakune resident Gerry Cranston reminisces about his boyhood fishing experiences: The Mangateitei Stream ran through my father's farm about one hundred yards from our old homestead. We were situated on the Rangataua Road about one and a half miles south of Ohakune, on the mountain side of the road. As children eight to ten years old, we had only been too aware on crossing this icy cold, crystal clear stream of the numerous rainbow trout of all sizes which lived in it. How to catch them for the frying pan for our hungry family was always uppermost in our minds. My mother and father had lived in a large city in England prior to purchasing the farm, so I'm afraid my father knew less than we did of fishing methods. We had watched various local fisherman using expensive looking rods with varying degrees of success. During

the day, they fished with a worm or some such lure, attached to a hook on the end of ninety yards of line and a reel. Towards evening they would attach a brilliantly coloured fly to the end of their line and fly fish during the evening rise. The rise, by the way, is when the evening insects are in flight and hover close to the water and land on it. Trout would literally fly up out of the water as they gathered their evening meal. A clever fisherman would land the fly on the water for a second or two only, being sure not to touch the water with any of the attached line while doing so. Very clever indeed (in our eyes any way). But the rod and tackle looked very expensive to us boys and completely beyond our means. On looking back it seems to me that the fisherman always displayed a trout of any decent size by carrying it with one hand with their fingers through its gills, so I must

also guess that the fish they carried in their fishing bags were'only tiddlers. We, of course, were green with envy as we saw them pass along the creek in front of our cow-bail while we were busy milking by hand. Having no licences when we decided we would have a go, we kept a good eye out until there was nobody about and then sneaked down to the river like thieves in the dark. We would firstly cut a small whippy lancewood, from the bush across the railway line at the back of the farm, for a rod. We would then find the finest, strongest, string possible, attach one end to the tip of our "rod" and tie a hook securely on the other end. We then rushed around the cow paddocks turning over matured cow pats until we had a tobacco tin full of healthy , fresh, wriggling worms. Then we were ready to do battle. Many, many hours we spent unsuccessfully when the stream was clear and the fish could hear our approach and see us. As they saw us they would swim for cover. But then we were told by a Maori friend that, without a length of gut from the hook to the line, we would only be successful when the stream was in flood and dirty with the soil being washed down. We then prayed for a flood. I can remember the uncontrollable joy of finding out that he was correct. As we were able to catch our first fish, I can clearly remember how we dropped the rod where we stood, and raced home to show mother or anybody else in sight how clever we were. Size meant nothing to us. A small 6"- 8" trout straight out of the water, still alive, is extremely slippery and difficult to carry in your bare hands, so numerous steps had to be made to retrieve the fish as it escaped. But really the pride of capture will never be forgotten. When fishing, as we did in a flood, numerous hooks were lost on snags (when the hook caught on a tree root or a piece of wood out of sight), but at four a penny we were not too worried. When we were able to buy gut and some proper fishing line, our ability to catch fish greatly improved, but until we discovered a small creek further up towards the mountain, about two miles distance from our farm our success was quite minimal. This little creek was very small — we could step over it — but literally full of very small trout. "As we were able to catch our first fish, I can clearly remember how we dropped the rod where we stood, and raced home to show mother or anybody else in sight how clever we were." By attaching a grasshopper to our hook, we were able to catch up to one hundred of these 6"- 8" long trout. In that day and age we, as Roman Catholics, were not permitted to eat meat on Fridays, so with plenty of encouragement from Mum, we always tried to catch fish on a Thursday for our Friday dinner. These trout, cooked in butter until the skin was crisp, were a treat I shall never forget. I think perhaps the largest fish we ever caught would have weighed something like two pounds. I know the fishing regulations of those days were much more flexible than today. We never purchased a licence and to the best of my knowledge never ever threw a tiddler back.