TROUT RIVER AND LAKE MINNOW-SPINNING. 1 25 



truth — apparent rari nantes in giirgite vasio — not only 

 they are not caught, but they are not seen. Fifteen 

 years ago, when the Marlow Fishing Association was in 

 its zenith, I remember that one of its most prominent 

 members thought nothing of taking two or three good- 

 sized Thames Trout in an April morning. Thegentleman 

 in question, Mr. H. R. Francis, was certainly one of the 

 most accomplished anglers who ever threw fly or bait 

 in the Thames ; but there are many first-rate spinners 

 and fly-fishers still to be found occasionally in their old 

 haunts, and none of them would, I think, be sanguine 

 enough to anticipate such a basket for the ist of April, 

 1870. The same number of fish per week would now be 

 a good take for any one. The lower weirs and pools have 

 fared no better, and yet the capabilities of the river are 

 precisely the same now as they were then. Nor does 

 " over fishing" explain the deficiency, because there are 

 now, and always miust have been, more Trout bred or 

 turned into the Thames every year than the water can 

 feed. I confess I am perplexed, and when a disease 

 cannot be diagnosed — as doctors phrase it — it is very 

 difficult to prescribe for the patient. There are, how- 

 ever, one or two points in which I think there can 

 be no doubt that the Thames Angling Preservation 

 Society might sensibly improve the Trout fishing. At 

 present, when the stock Trout are turned in at the weirs, 

 they have no proper "hides" or resting-places except 

 the weir holes themselves, and are probably, in the vast 



