AUSTRALIA 



give you my word I saw Mrs. Farrington catch one five 

 minutes after she had cleared the Heads. 



Max Lawson, who has caught more black and striped 

 marlin off Australia than any other angler, celebrated taking 

 his one hundredth fish while I was there in 1949. Mr. Lawson, 

 in the typical Australian manner, gave us his boat to use 

 while fishing off Sydney— and even had the American flag 

 flying. 



The Bay of Islands in New Zealand, where fish are found 

 in greater abundance is about seven hundred miles due east 

 of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and it is just about on 

 a parallel with Bermagui. Black marlin are not found much 

 farther down the New Zealand east coast than this bay and 

 comparatively few of these fish are picked up in the Bay of 

 Plenty. Thus it appears that this run of small black marlin 

 comes down the Australasian Current which flows by Nou- 

 mea and New Caledonia. As they come down it would seem 

 that these fish eventually alter course and work over toward 

 New Zealand. Of course, it may be asked why big black 

 marhn are caught in New Zealand while only small ones 

 are found in AustraHa. The answer probably is that the very 

 small fish do not go to New Zealand. Probably they go 

 around into the middle of the Tasman Sea before swimming 

 north again. However there are fish in New Zealand as small 

 as 300 pounds. My guess is that these come down from the 

 New Hebrides or Fiji Islands where they probably winter 

 and work on down into this Australasian Current. At any 

 rate there is plenty of feed for them and they naturally fol- 

 low this and the current. The latter runs south and the fish 

 are borne along with it until they turn and go back. The most 



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