Frost Fishing The Evening Star Newspaper Dunedin 1934 In winter time the seine nets were often hung up on the “gallows” or drying racks and the fishermen went frost fishing on the long sand beach at the Spit. The beach was patrolled during the night for frost fish. When the fish shot through the surf at daybreak they made a pretty picture, resembling silver hoops in their movement so they stranded on the beach in the rays of the rising sun. Sometimes they landed earlier in the night, and the uncertainty as to the time of their landing kept the fishermen on the quivive. The weather was bitterly cold, for the frost fish (as their name implies) only come ashore in frosty weather. Often the sandy beach was frozen hard right down to the high water mark and brisk walking was necessary to keep warm. A fire was usually kept going in a cave in the rock near “Bear Rock” (comment I note that the Department of Conservation have named Bear Rock as the “Hole in the Rock” that should be corrected). The frosty weather was long supposed to be primarily responsible for the frost fish coming ashore, but more recent observations has gone to show that the fish entered the breakers in pursuit of shoals of small sardines which came close inshore in frosty weather. Some nights from twenty to thirty frost fish would land on the beach, bur eight to twelve was a more usual tally. Other nights none landed. At daybreak the seagulls descended from the high cliffs also in quest of the tasty fish. They quickly stripped a fish on the beach. The Fishermen patrolled the beach principally from the Mole to the rocks at Jacob ’s ladder a distance of well over a mile. Occasionally their way to Kai Kai beach and on to Murdering Beach, for the frost fish landed there as well as at the Spit Beach. The first frost fish young Lewis (my grandfather) secured was at the opposite end of the latter beach from where his father was on patrol at the time. He was so pleased and excited that he ran the intervening mile and breathlessly displayed his find. (can you recall the time you caught your first fish ?) On a subsequent occasion he came on a batch of eleven frost fish landing through the surf. He secured nine of them and got the other two as well had not a girl come along the beach and collared them. The girls occasionally took a hand at frost fishing. One night he awoke to find that his father had gone fishing without him. Hastily dressing, he threw his boots over his shoulder, stuffed his socks in his pockets, and set off down the harbour side after his father, whom he overhauled within a short distance of the beach. There are two questions I have has anyone complained about the department calling Bear Rock th Hole in the Rock? And Two Have you ever been frost Fishing?
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 07:06:53 +0000
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