SALMON FISHING. 201 



temporary excitement takes place, to be duly succeeded by 

 temporary calm. 



" Norwegian salmon-fishings are getting dearer, and the 

 obtainable ones, as a matter of course, scarcer every year, as 

 the tide of English fishermen swells higher and higher. 

 The great point in favour of the Norway fishing, is the chance 

 of catching a big one, a forty-pounder, which will serve to 

 talk about for life ; but I hope that the mitigation of bag 

 and stake nets, and the opening of weirs, and the enforce- 

 ment of a weekly slop on our own rivers, will, in time, put 

 even this advantage at a discount. There is plenty of 

 salmon-fishing in our own favoured land if it were only 

 managed with the least reason and judgment to find ample 

 sport for every salmon-fisher in the kingdom, and at a rea- 

 sonable price to the fisherman, too of that I am perfectly 

 certain. The present and late high prices must go down in 

 a few years. Scores and scores of Irish rivers, comprising 

 hundreds of miles of fine fishing water, hitherto sealed up 

 tight, and not worth the wagging of a rod over, will come 

 into the market and compete with Norwegian and Scotch. 

 I would only instance one or two as examples, which have 

 often been quoted in " The Field." 



1 f Look at the Shannon, the Moy, and the Blackwater ; 

 these are splendid rivers. Shannon salmon-fishing has been 

 a mere myth. The Moy has been, by close fishing, reduced 

 to a trumpery grilse stream, where the fish average some 

 three or four pound apiece, and, save under accidental cir- 

 cumstances, it is not worth throwing a line above the weirs 

 at the mouth; yet there is an immense extent of splendid 

 river above this, with huge lakes as refuges for the fish to 

 back it, and which formerly, before the weir was built up, 

 produced very large fish, and was capable of finding sport 

 for innumerable anglers, all of which has hitherto been shut 

 up and is unproductive of any sport. The same may be said 

 of the Blackwater, which I see is now being attended to by 

 the commissioners good luck to theln ! And this is being 

 done all over Ireland, and the consequence will be that in a 

 very few years, vast tracts of fishing ground which have 



