WEIGHT OF SALMON. 51 



fish-spear speedily produced, and in a very short space of time 

 an infinite deal of mischief is perpetrated. 



I should be inclined to question the accuracy of weight 

 which Sir Humphry gives his salmon. Fish, of the sizes he 

 describes, are rarely met with here, and out of one thousand 

 taken in the nets, there will not be ten fish of twenty- five 

 pounds weight. 



The average size is from seven to fifteen pounds. Within 

 thirty years, but one monster has been taken ; he weighed 

 fifty- six pounds. Four years ago one of forty -eight pounds 

 was caught : but of the thousands which I have seen taken, I 

 would say, I never saw a fish weighing more than thirty- 

 five pounds, and not many reaching even to twenty-five 

 pounds. 



The Priest, my neighbour, who lives on the banks of 

 Goolamore, told me he once killed a salmon of twenty- seven 

 pounds weight, and that the feat gave him an. infinity of 

 trouble, and occupied three mortal hours. The Priest fishes 

 with tackle of amazing strength, and is one of the best practical 

 anglers I have ever met with. Sir Humphry Davy men- 

 tions salmon of twenty-five and thirty pounds as being com- 

 monly taken with a fly. The largest I ever killed was eighteen 

 pounds four ounces, and it gave me abundant exercise for an 

 hour. Either Sir Humphry overrates the weight of Scottish 

 salmon, or in the rivers he frequented they must be immensely 

 superior to those found in the Irish waters. In the Shannon, 

 I believe, the largest fish are found, and I am inclined to think, 

 that even there the capture of salmon of this unusual magni- 

 tude, is an event of very rare occurrence. 



Pennant states, " that the largest salmon ever known 

 weighed seventy-four pounds. In September 1795, one 

 measuring upwards of four feet from nose to tail, and three 

 in circumference, weighing within a few ounces of seventy 

 pounds, was sold at Billingsgate, and was the largest ever 

 brought there. The Severn salmon are much inferior as to their 

 bulk, for one taken near Shrewsbury, in 1757, weighing only 

 thirty-seven pounds, is recorded in the British Chronologist, as 

 exceeding in length any ever known to be taken in that river, 

 and being the heaviest except one ever remembered in that 

 town, They have in many parts been caught by angling, 



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