2 ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



catches of fish. Doubtless, there is an element of absurdity 

 in the published reports of an angling contest carried out 

 upon solemnly promulgated rules, and with all the formality 

 of supervision and directions from a responsible committee, 

 yet which results in the gentleman who bears away the 

 most valuable prize winning by an interesting roachlet seven 

 inches long, and a small eel* to make the weight more 

 imposing. Every week, as a matter of fact, if any one cared 

 to search for them, a dozen reports of angling might be 

 selected to support the one-sided view that in this ancient 

 land we are, in the matter of sport, reduced to a very 

 sorry plight. 



Since that meeting was held, I have, however, employed 

 myself in carefully noting the corresponding literature of 

 the United States, and I find that the angling records 

 there, where everything is so splendidly new and gloriously 

 big, do not materially differ from our own. Time after 

 time have American sportsmen assured me that the piteous 

 cry, in lamentation for rivers overfished and sport de- 

 stroyed, is familiar under the Stars and Stripes, and that 

 the American angler has continually to push out to fresh 

 fishing grounds. In New Zealand and Tasmania, where 

 the best trout-fishing in the world will probably be found 

 within a few years, that plaintive wail would also be 

 echoed but for the obvious sparsity of population, and 

 it will be heard when there are more fishermen to worry 

 the fish. 



In the angling waters of Great Britain we may at any 

 rate fairly assume that we know the worst. With us, there 

 is no pushing out west until we reach the Rocky Mountain 

 trout. Our sport is confined within a comparatively tiny 



* I believe in most angling clubs eels are not recognised as weigh- 

 able game. But I saw a match won in the manner described. 



