1931 - School House Hatchery

 In 1927, a new head teacher, the 36-year-old C. A. Glew (Sticky), was appointed to the Pemberton Public School. During that year he took 6 weeks of long service leave and travelled to Victoria where he gathered extensive information on the acclimatisation of trout in Victoria. On his return to Pemberton, he collected data on the temperature and food availability of local waters. Over four years he did not find any adversity in either. 

A promised parcel of 1000 rainbow ova delivered by boat from Victoria, mostly perished after a 13-day sea voyage, although there was no facility to receive them in Pemberton. During the winter of 1931, an experimental hatchery was built on the back veranda of the schoolhouse in Brockman Street Pemberton.

In August 1931, the second container of 20,000 Brown Trout ova was sent from Traralgon South Hatchery, via Melbourne express train to Adelaide, then by a flight in a Vickers Viastra-II aeroplane from Adelaide to Perth, and then finally by train to Pemberton, all in less than 80 hours. The losses of ova were minimal and within 16 days of their arrival in the “experimental” hatchery, 16,000 ova had successfully progressed into alevins and then soon developed into fry. In September 1931, the fry were released into Big Brook and other waters and seemed to have disappeared. 

In 1932 Mr Glew was transferred away from Pemberton, but his efforts to that point pioneered the beginning of Pemberton's trout story.

 In 1935 The Game and Fish Acclimatisation and Protection Society was formed in Perth, with C. A. Glew as one of the joint secretaries. They raised significant funds for an experimental hatchery that was built near the wooden hydroelectricity pipeline adjacent to Big Brook in 1936. The facility consisted of a hatchery hut, ponds, and a manager’s residence. 

On 17 August 1936, 100,000 brown and rainbow trout ova, supplied from Ballarat Hatchery in Victoria, arrived at Maylands, using the same transport system of train and plane travel pioneered in Mr Glew’s 1931 experiment. Motor coach was used to complete the journey to Pemberton. The ova were successfully hatched out, raised to fry and fingerlings for release into Big Brook and other waters. On Friday 9thFebruary 1937, the largest trout ever caught, a 5 -year-old brown female of 11.25 pounds (5.1 kg) and 29.5 inches (74.9 cm) long grown from Mr Glew’s 1931 experiment was captured. 

On 27 August 1937, due to lack of funds, only 20,000 ova arrived at Maylands via East West Airways Douglas DC-2, then sent by train to Pemberton for hatching and further growth, before release in local waters. In 1938 the acclimatisation society founded in Perth ceased to function due to lack of funds. The hatchery closed. Attention now shifted to a more local acclimatisation organisation based in Pemberton, driven by locals, and focused on trapping the available mature trout on their spawning runs as the source of ova and not the more expensive option of importation from Victoria. 

James MacCallum Smith was a member of the Game and Fish Acclimatisation and Protection Society of Western Australia. A man of many parts, MacCallum Smith was a successful businessman in Western Australia and a politician. He was the owner of the Sunday Times, had several farming properties and was the Member for North Perth in the WA Legislative Assembly for many years prior to his death. In addition, MacCallum Smith was a strong protagonist for Western Australia to withdraw from the Commonwealth of Australia and was a leader in the Succession Movement during the1930’s including travelling to London in 1933 to petition the King to that effect. 

MacCallum Smith was a man of significant wealth who died without direct heirs to be in receipt of his Western Australian estate. Upon his death in 1939, a bequest from his estate of £350 was made to the Game and Fish Acclimatisation and Protection Society.

The availability of the funds from his estate was crucial in helping to finance the trout holding ponds during wartime, thus supporting the development of using local brood stock and not relying on imported ova.

It was in his memory and to acknowledge the funds from his original bequest to the Fish and Game Acclimatisation Society, that the ponds were named the MacCallum Smith Memorial Ponds.

For more images, click here.

 The MacCallum Smith Memorial Ponds constructed in 1941 and opened in 1942, were part of the local plan conceived in 1938, to make Western Australia self-sufficient in supplies of trout ova and no longer be dependent on ova from the other side of Australia. To that end, local trout were to be captured in stream sited 'trout traps', ova obtained from the females and milt from males, the fertilised ova hatched to alevins and fry in the One Mile Brook Hatchery, before transfer to the ponds for their further growth and development.

In 1944, despite only getting £550, half the funds requested from the fisheries department and government, the plan went ahead, with the hatchery sited on One Mile Brook, at Golf Links Road above the memorial ponds. It was built using the available labour and under the direction of Mr P. H. Pemberton a local builder. 

Clean water was supplied to the hatchery operations via a 3.5 inch bore asbestos cement pipe, which directed water from a spring fed dam higher up the hill and down 900 feet of pipe. One hundred gallons per minute were delivered to the troughs with a 25 feet head and a further 6 feet drop over the three banks of troughs to assist aeration. The troughs were 14 feet long and 14 inches wide, set-in pairs, and in banks of 5, with three sets of banks in a cascading series. In a local innovation, which proved highly successful, they were made from concrete since other materials were not available at that time. 

In 1948 the first edition of a tourist booklet Trout in the Karri Country was published to promote the timber town of Pemberton to tourists in the post-war recovery period, its tall trees, its unique swimming pool, and the trout ponds to tourists in the post-war recovery period. 

The establishment of Trout Fishing as a recreational activity in the streams and rivers of the Karri country had been a strong vision of locals and others for some years, characterised by some failures but also resolute persistence. Even though there was the incursion of the early war years and the loss of men to the war effort, the ponds were built, completed, and functional by the end of 1941.  Despite the gravity of the times, those interested in the concept had their sights set on the enterprise for the post-war recovery. 

With trout reared in the MacCallum Smith Memorial Trout Ponds released into local waters, the vision of trout fishing became reality. The ability for them to survive and to some degree flourish provided a great challenge for visiting anglers and the ponds themselves became a major tourist attraction in their own right and attracted thousands of tourists annually. 

Trout Fishing .  .  .  

No leisure could be more pleasant or more satisfying than fishing for trout in the streams of the karri country in the South West. The trout population is growing and so are the takers of trout and the size of the fish. A trout over 7lb. in weight was recently landed by one of the 200 anglers licensed to fish. Trout acclimatisation began in Western Australia in 1930 and in the ensuing years tens of thousands of fingerlings have been released in suitable streams.  

Author: D. N. Ford. Source: The National Library of Australia (click for larger image)

The Unknown Fisherman

The three photographs below were taken in 1949 at a site on Lefroy Brook, Pemberton. The identity of the fisherman is unknown.