ANGLING NOTES.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 34, 5 November 1920, Page 4

ANGLING NOTES.

BY "CREEL."

By Chas. J. Winter.

THE FISHY ANGLER. Have I * been a fisherman loxxg, sir ? Aye for sixty-three summers or more. Why I fished with a bent pin and cotton, in the slop-pail before I was four. I've eaught plaice and skate from the sea shoxe, From the piers I've c-aught congers and dabs, And even when I went out boatmg, I was always a-catchin' of crabs. In the -wet I've caught many colds, sir, When the rain has been ponrin' full pelt, And even if I fished iix the sewers, I'U het I'd catch fishes that smelt. I've sat and gazed over the boat-sidp, right down to the sea's rocky bed, Where the lobsters crawled by iix such thousaxxds, That the water was tinged a bright red. Y'ou want my most thrilling adventure? Well it happened in nineteen-i.-teen, I was after a mighty big trout, sir, which at tinxes by my pals had been seen, It kept to one pool in the river, by all fisherman round it was feared, For they noted whenever it wa.s spotted, Some poor angling chap disappeared, Now I'd long beexx determined to land him, I'd made my arrangements for years, Ro I dashed off by train for the spot, six% When the news of his coming I hears. I'd long kept a special great lob-worm, Which for thickness would quite take the cake, I'd fed it on port-wine and bovril, Till it grew as big as a snake. 1 arrived at the place in the evening, And resolved that next day I'd begin, so I looked up my pals and we drifted,"to drink my success at ihe inn. As we drank' I fetched down on tlie table, A stufied salmon trout from the wall, And for two hours I studied each detail, to help me in making my haul. Well I started next day for the river, " Whex'e I soon had a sight qf my mark, But I'm bound to admit I was scared, sir, For xt'.s size wag as big as a shark. It suddenly leapt from the water, and barked with a 'orrible din, Then flopped back a^ain with a wallop, Which wet me right through to the skin. If a Billingsgate porter had seen it, 'twould have coloured his language a bit. 'Twould have frightened the life out of Jonah, Or gin'n Isaac Walton a fit. I went straight for my worm in a jiffy, But he didn't quite like my fierce look, He bit me and fought like a viper, till I had him at last on the hook. Then I heaved him right into the x*iver, at the moment the trout rose agaxn, s He gobbled it down in a moment, and I pulled it with might and with xxiain, But lor, sir, my strength was as nothing Beside this phejxomenal fish, In a fiash I was jerked off my feet, sir, And pulled through the waves with a swish, Then he stopped and he turned in his ; tracks, sir, . His evil eyes gleamed in his head. And his horrid great mouth was wide open, And his teeth were all dripping with red. Then I hnew what had happened to others, And I said "here's the last of Bili Jones," For as I looked into his gullet, I eould see hurnan skuiis and great bones. He paused for a moment tlxen darted iTowards me witlv lightning like pace, So I prayed to St. George and Sam Isaacs, And closed in a deadly embrace. Down, down through the water we battled, ' I could fefel I'd got many a wound, Till at last I was fairly exhausted, my hreath was all gone and I swooned. I was found late at night at the inn, sir, With my arms round the stuffed salmon trout, But how I maxiaged to get there, is. a puzzle I'd like to find out.

The rivers throughout Southland have been unprecedentedly low for the opening month of the seaaon, and as a consequence fiy fisherman have been able to secure some ,good bags on the Oreti on reaches that as a rule do not give good resulta to the consummate art of casting a delicate 3 x or 4 x cast at the end of a nice 10 or 11ft fly rod, until later oxi in the season. While fishing tlxe Makarewa the other

evening tlxe writer hpd a unique (to him) experience while fishing with tlxe fly. Fish were not on the move in the al'ternoon, but about 4.30 p.m. the trout started to feed on the whitebait, and noticing a nice hefty fish about 2£lbs swishing into a slioal he was tempted to try him with a w,eil-directed cast into the centx-e of his feeding patch. The flies duly arrived there, and the fish turned like a fish and took the tail fly (red body Waipahi). He seem.ed surprised when he got a sudden jab, but woke up with a start, and then went it. He was a very strong fish, in splendid condition, and put up a good fight before being eventually creeled. The same tactics were adopted again and this time a "beauty," 4^1bs in weight was the victim, and there was some satisfactipn, in landing him on a fine 3 x red loop cast. Other two good fish were encountered, but two flies were left in two, and > a third (31bs) was lost iix netting. However, three fish, 4^, 2^, and 21bs respectively were very w,elcome on fine tackle Mr J. W. Smith landed from the Oreti on the fly, sixteen fish on W,ednesday, October 27. Mr J. Blick fishing the sam6 river at the iron bridge secured a bag of twelve. The killing flies were Red Body Waipahi, Purple Grouse, March Brown,and Red Tip Governor. Last week-cnd Messrs Hoffman and Baldwin, landed seven well-conditioned fish from the Makarewa, and a further thirty-seven heaviest ' weighing 7Albs), from tlxe New river. Nineieen fish were caught iu one l'ipple, and the anglers report the river to be well stocked this season. Natural bully and smelt was the bait used. Our Mandeville correspondent contributes the following : The best bags secured were by Messrs Oeo, Richardson, Joseph and Max. Hoffman, at* Gore, who got 75 very nice trout. They used both fly and creeper, but got the rnajority with the creeper. Mr Taylor, of Kaitangata, got sixteen with the fly in the Otamita, and in about twenty minutes in the evening landed five from the Waimea, also with the fly. Both the Waimea and Otamita are in excellent condition after the reeent rain, and have been well patronised by disciples of Isaac Walton since the opening of the season. The triangular team representing the Southland Angling Club will be picked from the following : — Messrs A. E. Tapper, C. Wilson, N. R. McKay, W. Steel, G. Braxton and A. N. Pattle. The following interesting articie is taken from the "Field" of August 21st, 1920. The "Field" in recognised as being one of hte most authorative journals published in the Old Country, with i*eference to anything apertaining to to angling : — THE MODERN EDUCATION OF TROUT. For these many years the education of the trout has been proceeding apace ; but it is rather a difficult question to decide in which direction they have made most progress. I suppose every an.gler would agree that they are more difficult to catch than they Ixsed to be, esp,ecially in waters that are mrich fished. But we cannot cross-question or examine ; we can only draw our own conclusions from their behaviour. The conclusion which I come to is that, whilst we ar,e endeavouring more and more exactly to imitate the natural jnse'ct, and to present our invitation to the fish in a natui'al manner, the trout is all the while far more concerned "with our gut than our fly. The modern trout may be particular about the fly — sometimes he is, at other times he is not, but he is far more inclined to be suspicious of a gut attachment. I am inclined to thi'nk that We may overdp the fly question. Most of the modern books on angling are devoted to the tying of flies. Now fly tying is a delicate art, and fly collecting is a nice hobby. But many men, and those by no means the least successful anglers, regularly fish the season through with a very limited number of patterns. I believe the seeret of their success is the attention they pay to their gut. With really fine gut and- half a dozen patterns of flies a fisherman might give a pretty good accoant of himself for the sea,son on most trout streams ; let us say, Dark Red Spinner, March Brown, Red Body Waipahi, Oreenwell's Glory, Jessie No. 4, and perhaps Purple Grouse or Red Tip Governor (I have substituted N.Z. flies for the Engl'ish patterns). There fe a. certain fa-scination in nx&king a selectlon of flies, and no two anglers, I suppose, would agree upon the subject, as most men have certain favourite flies. Those that they believe in most they try the oftenest, and so .reinforce their beliefs. Our own attention to-day is chiefly directed towards tlie fly; fly-tying, as I said before, loom3 very large in our modern angling litera-