THE HAMPSHIRE STREAMS 113 



owing to various causes — pollution and poaching 

 among others — but good baskets are often made. 

 A friend tells me his bag of trout for the 1897 

 season was well over a hundred and fifty brace. 

 He did particularly well evening fishing, and, 

 indeed, after the first half of June and the dis- 

 appearance of the May-fly, as a rule, found it, of 

 little good fishing in the day-time. Dry fly may 

 be used on the Arle ; and, as in the case of the 

 other Hampshire chalk streams, the olive dun 

 comes on in fair quantities. From what I have 

 seen of the stream, I should certainly recommend 

 the usual chalk stream patterns that are used on 

 the Test and Itchcn. The March brown is also 

 used by some Arle fly fishermen. Mr. Goble, of 

 Fareham, so long known as the honorary secretary 

 of the Titchfield Fishing Club, has kindly shown 

 me an interesting old record of fish and fishing on 

 the Arle.^ Salmon and sea trout appear to have 

 been quite abundant in this stream fifty years or 

 so since, as they were in the Hamble ; whilst 

 lampreys also abounded below Titchfield. 



The Loddon in its lower parts in Berkshire, 

 though it contains a few large fish and has here 

 and there been stocked to some extent. The 

 is not really a trout stream ; but in its Loddon 

 upper waters in Hampshire it is well worthy of 

 notice. The Loddon is here a loam and gravel 

 stream, rising in Newram Springs, near Basing- 

 stoke, and receiving the Blackwater at Swallow- 

 field, where Clarendon wrote his History of the 

 Rebellion. The Blackwater was once a trout 

 stream, but now it is scarcely fit for any fish, 

 owing to the Aldershot sewage. Its tributary the 



^ See Appendix " Arle." 



I 



