24 CHATS ON ANGLING. 



wading is not always feasible in waters such as those of the lower Test, 

 where the depth of the stream precludes it. Even then, skill and local 

 knowledge will often overcome the difficulty, and a fish in such a position 

 usually falls a ready victim to the fly that floats truly, as he has been lulled 

 into a sense of false security by his previous experience that dangerous 

 flies leave a trailing mark behind them. But what a revelation it is of the 

 education that trout have received, and how capable they are of absorbing 

 and profiting by it ! It seems almost as if the constant catching and 

 destruction of the freest rising fish must be having effect in leaving those 

 only to propagate their species which are either past masters in cunning or 

 which are more coarsely organised fish, that devote their time and energies 

 to bottom feeding and avoid surface feeding, except, possibly, at night ; the 

 universally acknowledged fact that fish are far more difficult to catch than 

 they formerly were may thus be explained. Certainly, nowadays, an angler 

 would be somewhat out of it who tried to emulate the far-famed Colonel 

 Hawker, of Long Parish, and to catch the wily trout in that beautiful 

 stretch of the Test while fishing off a horse's back. Nor could any 

 modern angler hope or expect to approach the baskets that were formerly 

 creeled. So is it everywhere. On the beautiful Driffield Beck, in 

 Yorkshire, a paradise for the dry-fly angler, the club limit of ten brace of 

 sizeable fish in one day used to be constantly attained, and that, too, with 

 the wet fly up or even down stream. Now, with split cane rods, the finest 

 gut, and the deftest of floating duns, five or six brace is about the best 

 basket obtainable by experienced and most skilful anglers. 



The natural question that perplexes and worries chalk-stream anglers 

 is whether this " advanced " education of brook and river trout is to go on 

 increasing. If we can only hope to catch half the amount of fish our 

 progenitors did, what are the prospects of the next generation ? Shall we 

 have to fall back on black bass or rainbow trout to secure a race of 

 free-rising fish ? Or does the fault lie in over-cutting of weeds and bad 

 river farming ? I am inclined to think it does. Riverside mills are in an 

 almost hopeless position commercially. The miller requires a heavier 

 head of water than formerly, and with a decaying industry it is hard to 

 refuse him, the result being that to maintain his head of water the weeds 

 are ruthlessly and unscientifically cut over vast stretches of water, 

 shallows are bared, and the holts or refuges of trout are done away with, 



