NEW ZEALAND AS A FISHING GROUND 389 



from clients of mine, who have gone out this 1912 and 1913 

 season, the best of reports from both Islands as to the trout 

 fishing. The fish are reported as being in excellent condition 

 and plentiful, the rivers specially mentioned being the 

 Orura, Waikato, Rangotata, Tearoha, and Rakahi. Lake 

 Taupo has also been fishing remarkably well. 



In 1905 a gentleman, Mr. Hardy Topham, came down 

 from London to Sidmouth, at which place I was staying, in 

 order to induce me to give him lessons in casting a trout fly. 

 I had not considered the idea of starting a school at that 

 time, but finding he was on the point of going out to New 

 Zealand for a six months' trip, and that he had had no 

 experience in fishing at all, I therefore took him with me 

 for a few hours' instruction on the stream I was fishing in 

 Devonshire. In the spring of the following year, when he 

 returned to England, I received a letter from him, thanking 

 me for having taught him how to cast, and stating that he 

 had had the greatest success in New Zealand, as during the 

 time he had been out there he had caught with the dry 

 and wet fly over 1,500 fish, whose weight amounted to 4,500 

 pounds. 



Another of my clients, Sir Edmund Lechmere, Bart., 

 a well-known African sportsman, killed in the Tongariro 

 River, two Trout weighing 16f and 17 f pounds respectively, 

 and many others in the same river up to 13| pounds. 



My reason for quoting a few of the wonderful records which 

 have been made in trout fishing in New Zealand is to give 

 my readers some insight into the abundance of sport which 

 is open to the fisherman who has the good fortune to visit 

 that country. While the pride which attends the lucky 

 possessor of some record head, or other trophy, is under- 

 standable, the indiscriminate slaughter of natural life which 

 attends the making of a record bag, can only be accounted 

 for by either the lust of killing or the wish to gain some 



