388 



INLAND FISHERIES. 



by rod and line find their way to market, and there are a number of profes- 

 sional anglers who fish solely for commercial purposes. 



As a sport, anglmg is of the greatest importance to the country, since 

 nowhere else in the three kingdoms can the sportsman obtain such good 

 angling at so small an outlay. Famous fisheries of course command high 

 rents, but almost every river holds salmon, and in the remoter parts of the 

 country good sport can often be obtained at no charge beyond the very 

 moderate bill of the hotel which has leased the fishery. The complaints, 

 so frequent in past years, that the excellence of the fishing was marred by 

 the uninhabitable nature of the hotels has no longer much justification in 

 fact, existing hotels having been improved and new ones having sprung up 

 in all directions. The rivers, of course vary in their season and in the 



Salmon Pass, Galway. 



quality of fish which they hold, and while a man may hope to land a forty- 

 pounder in the Shannon he need expect nothing but " peal " (grilse) in 

 many of the smaller rivers. In the summer the white trout angling is 

 excellent and accessible to the most moderate purse in many rivers and 

 lakes in the West. Brown trout are in every lake and stream, and leave 

 to fish for them may usually be had for the asking, where they happen to be 

 preserved at all. In the larger lakes they grow to a great size and give 

 proportionate sport. No licence is required for brown trout angling, a 

 licence of £i being payable for salmon or white trout angling and applying 

 to the whole country. 



Char are to be found in several lakes, but are little troubled by anglers. 



Unfortunately those who are interested in Pike need have no difficulty in 

 finding them, and there is a substratum of truth as to the size of the Irish 

 pike quite sufficient to support a considerable edifice of piscatorial romance, 

 though it may not be every day that one catches a monster in whose mouth 

 " the spoon-baits are jangling like the bells of Armagh cathedral." 



