84 



iuipruve the sport of those favoured anglers Avho are privi- 

 leaeJ to fish the Darenth. But all our efforts in the direc- 

 tioii of re-stoeldug- are wasted, so long- as the young trout 

 are devoured by the insatiable pike. A war of extermin- 

 ation against the common enemy is necessary, and it must 

 be persistently maintained and unceasingly waged, if the 

 sport of the trout angler on the Dareuth is to be kept uj) in 

 the futiu'e. 



Another serious enemy to the trout in this stream are 

 the herons. They are not numerous, but so sure as you 

 turn in a lot of yearlings on some shallows, so surely will 

 a heron make those shallows his feeding- ground. Where 

 these birds come from is a mystery, because we have no 

 heronry anywhere in the Darenth valley, so far as I am 

 aware of. For weeks past we have been sorely troubled by 

 the number of dead fish, upon the shallows of our Eynsford 

 club water. But last Sunday morning I caught sight of 

 the culprit — a huge heron standing knee-deep in the 

 stream. I am not sure that a heron has got a knee, but 

 that does not matter. This big bird flopped up clumsily, 

 and, rising to a great height, sailed away over the hills to 

 the w^est. I propose to save him the necessity of catching 

 his own trout in future, by baiting some rabbit gins w^ith 

 small fish. 



Kingfishers, like the herons, find their way to our trout 

 nurseries, and what is more they come to stop, when they 

 find their larder well stored. I know of three kingfishers 

 nests upon our length of the Darenth this season, and I 

 would not have them interfered with on an}^ account. They 

 take toll of the trout fry, no doubt, but they eat more 

 minnows than trout, and I do not begrudge them their 

 share of our fish. 



What has always astonished me is the fact that none of 

 the Kentish riparian owners have ever gone in for arti- 

 ficial trout breeding. The needful apparatus cost next to 

 nothing and, gi-\-en a constant supply of water, nature will 

 do the rest. I once turned a thousand Loch Leven year- 

 lings into the Eynsford length of this river, and they grew 

 rapidly to half pound fish, retaining their white silvery 



