lOi 



THE CANTEEBUEY STOIIE. 



The Lower Stour, below our Kent Catliedral city, is sliown 

 in an accompanying illustration, and from tliis it will be 

 seen wliat a pretty trout stream tlie Stour is in places. 

 Thanks to the long sustained efforts of Mr. F. C. Xash, the 

 hon. sec. of an angling club, the preservation and constant 

 restocking of this water has greatly improved the sport of 

 subscribers during the past few seasons. Pike were for- 

 merly a source of much vexation and loss, but persistent 

 efforts have well nigh exterminated them. The Falstaff 

 Hotel, at Canterbury, is the nearest and most conveniently 

 situated house for those fisliing the Lower Stour, and I can 

 speak well of this famous olcl hostelry. The trout season 

 opens on April 1st and closes September 30tli, and the price 

 of a season ticket is only four guineas. All the funds of 

 the club are expended in artificially hatching and rearing 

 of trout and the care of the river. There are some very 

 deep holes in the lower reaches, wherein pike, perch, tench, 

 and roach are caught by bottom fishermen, and daily tickets 

 at Is. each are issued for this class of angling. There 

 is also an ang-linc club lower down, whose water extends 

 from Fordwich to Stoiirmouth, and the season tickets for 

 this length cost a guinea. 



Above the town, from Canterbmy to Shalmsford, is an 

 excellent piece of association water, upon which it is possible 

 occasionally to find a vacancy for a rod on reasonable terms. 

 The Stour is a typical slow-running, chalk sream, where 

 no one but a professor of the dry-fly art stands any chance 

 of scoring'. All the flies enumerated for Daren th fishing 

 kill equally well on this Canterbiu-y river, and all the local 

 fishermen here swear by the dressings of Mr. G. Holland, 

 of "Winchester. Some people say that catching trout does 

 not depend so much upon the fiy as upon the man who drives 



