CHAPTER X 



THE DEVONSHIRE AND CORNWALL STREAMS 



Devonshire may be safely described as the 

 most troutful county in the south of England. 

 It has far more streams than any other county 

 referred to in this volume, and they are one and 

 all — save where poisoned — trout producing. Many 

 of its streams flow through wild and romantic 

 scenery, and most of them abound in trout of a 

 small size. Devonshire has many excellent 

 angling inns delightfully situated, and permission 

 to fish is by no means so difficult for the stranger 

 or tourist to obtain as it is in the case of the chalk 

 streams of the Home Counties. Moreover, in 

 Devonshire the least skilful fly fisherman may 

 commonly reckon on getting a little sport, though 

 he must not expect to put together those baskets 

 of four or five dozen troutlets which often fall to 

 the lot of the accomplished and the local angler. 

 Devonshire has such a large number of trout 

 streams that it really requires a book to itself, but 

 I shall endeavour within the space at my command 

 to give some particulars respecting its best and most 

 considerable waters. In the eastern corner there is 

 the Axe, which rises in Somersetshire, and, swelled 



