ROD AND RIVER 



After they attain to a certain age and size, trout 

 generally deteriorate and lose condition, and I 

 do not think that many fish of over four or five 

 pounds in weight are by any means an acquisition 

 to a river, inasmuch as they do an incalculable 

 amount of damage. They rarely rise at a fly 

 until it is too dark to see to fish for them, and 

 they not only make up for their abstinence from 

 fly-food during the day by hunting and killing 

 an enormous number of the smaller fish, but they 

 are also the most inveterate spawn-eaters, and 

 doubtless set a similarly bad example to the other 

 fish, who, seeing them so poaching, learn the 

 habit from them. 



It is the complaint on* many a river that the 

 trout, which formerly rose freely at a fly, although 

 every means may have been taken to secure the 

 preservation of the river, year by year afford less 

 and less sport. I am convinced that, though 

 perhaps not the sole cause, such is, to a very 

 great extent, due to the stock of large fish being 

 too great. Such fish become almost as bad as 

 pike, and their destruction is not only justifiable, 

 but judicious, and any means may be taken to 

 effect it, for they play havoc with a river. Nor 

 should too large a stock of fish ever be permitted. 

 There are limits to the supply of food in every 

 river, and those limits should not only never be 

 exceeded, but never reached. The fish will 



