52 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



easy ; but on the whole the fishing is not rendered 

 very difficult through such obstacles, and wading 

 is scarcely ever necessary or excusable. The free 

 flow of the stream is much interfered with almost 

 every day during the best part of the angling 

 season by the action of mills, and sometimes the 

 fisherman has to wait hours for the water in the 

 height of the May-fly season. I have noticed that 

 when the water after being held up an hour or two 

 begins to flow once more in something like its 

 proper volume, trout frequently rise well for a short 

 period ; and this is the case on the Hertfordshire 

 Lea above Hatfield and various other streams. 



At Eynsford there is a little trout water which 

 may be fished by those who purchase a daily ticket 

 at the Plough Inn, and the famous old hostelry the 

 Lion at Farningham has a short stretch above 

 Franks. There are sometimes plenty of fish in the 

 Lion water, and many a fighting three-quarter of a 

 pound trout has the writer had with dry fly out of 

 this pleasant stretch ; but these fish are anything 

 save easy to entice. A pound and a half trout is here 

 a decidedly good one, though from the bit of rapid 

 water to be fished from the pretty lawn of the old 

 inn. bigger fish have occasionally been taken. Th3 

 May-fly, as a rule, comes on in fair quantities on 

 the Darenth, though I cannot say I have myself 

 seen a very great hatch of the fly on this stream. 

 Some Darenth anglers still fish with the wet fly, while 

 others consider the wet fly most killing in April and 

 early May, and after that the dry fly. Personally 

 I have never succeeded in killing a sizeable trout 

 with anything but the dry fly on the Darenth, and 

 I consider the stream well adapted to this method. 

 Of course when the fish are very numerous and 



