THE WILTSHIRE STREAMS 



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near Burbage, ten miles higher up. It contains 

 good trout, especially at the present time between 

 Porton and Wintcrbourne Earls, as well as below 

 Laverstoke and at Longford Castle. Though I 

 have seen a few good trout now and then miles 

 above the ordinary source of some streams, such as 

 the Hampshire Bourne, I cannot hear that any 

 have ever appeared above Idmiston, even when the 

 springs have been up. The chalk-stream patterns 

 and the dry fly may be used on the Porton Stream. 



Before leaving this part of Wiltshire, I may 

 mention that there are some fine trout to be seen 

 at the Bridges in Salisbury. These fish run up to 

 a great weight. Now and again a large one is 

 captured, but not, it is to be feared, by a very 

 sportsmanlike device. The Porton Stream was not 

 overlooked by Drayton, who referred to it as the 

 "pretty Bourne." 



The (Bristol) Avon and its branches and 

 tributaries water the north-west part of the 

 county. The stream rises by Tetbury, 'pj^g 

 and passes among other places in Wilt- (Bristol) 

 shire, on its way to the Bristol Channel, 

 Malmesbury, Dauntsey, Chippenham, and Trow- 

 bridge. It receives several tributaries, such as the 

 Thunder Brook, the Maiden, and the Biss. It is 

 also swelled by the drainings of several lakes, such 

 as Lord Lansdowne's in Bowood Park, which some 

 consider would make the finest sheet of water for 

 trout fishing in the South of England, were it 

 cleared of its pike and other coarse fish and stocked 

 with Loch Levens. The (Bristol) Avon is, on the 

 whole, far more in the nature of a coarse fish than 

 a trout stream, but it does contain trout, and good 

 ones too, in various stretches and in several of its 



