206 SALMON FISHING 



being taken toll of every fifty yards, until few are 

 left. Fish seem to spawn fairly well ; but I fancy 

 that few young fish ever get to the sea. Last 

 season and the season before were certainly improve- 

 ments on the previous five or six years. Few fish 

 of the normal weight, however, ran up in the spring; 

 their place was taken by 8 Ibs. salmon. Over-netting 

 at the mouth is, in my opinion, the chief cause of 

 the falling-off. Few fish have a chance of getting 

 up. The Glyde is an easy river to drag, being free 

 of rocks, and having a level bottom and shelving 

 banks. The river is 'cared for' by bailiffs and 

 others, as it has always been ; but prosecutions for 

 poaching are few and convictions fewer. Want of 

 funds prevents the Conservators from paying suf- 

 ficiently high wages to procure good men. With 

 judicious nursing by lessening the net -fishing at 

 the mouth and in the sea just off the mouth, by 

 combined effort to turn in fry, and by riparian 

 owners taking more interest in the matter, a very 

 few years would show considerable improvement. 

 Poaching is rampant when fish are running, and 

 unless the Government steps in and allows the Police 

 and Coast Guards to act as bailiffs little can be done 

 to stop it. The money now wasted on bailiffs could 

 be paid over to Government and used for river- 

 guarding purposes. The river opens on February 1, 

 but often there is a considerable run earlier." 



The OWENEA rises in a mountain lake about sixty 

 acres in extent, and runs, through more or less moun- 

 tainous land for twenty miles, into the Atlantic near 



