84 CHATS ON ANGLING. 



should I do that, Pat ? Are you not content with your tip ? " " Well, 

 your honour, I don't want ye to pay altogither for it, but only to buy 

 it for me." After some further conversation I consented to go up to 

 the shanty on the hill where his old mother lived. There I found her 

 haggling over the price of a sow ; she averred that £3 was more than 

 the sow was worth, the man was holding out for £3 10.?. Eventually 

 I became the purchaser at ^3, and, paying the money, told Pat that 

 as he had been a good gillie to me he could have the pig for his own. 

 All the blessings of heaven were showered on my head by Pat and 

 his mother ; but no sooner had the dealer departed than Pat, producing 

 an old stocking, extracted three sovereigns therefrom and solemnly 

 handed them to me. Asked what all this comedy meant, Pat at once 

 replied, "Ach, sorr, would ye have me let the praste know I'd got three 

 sovereigns in my pocket?" 



Were the nets at the mouth of the Clady and the Crolly kept within 

 reasonable limits, few better rivers for summer angling could be found. 

 Having seen their capabilities when the nets were perforce removed 

 altogether, I gained an idea of what the sport might be in our sea-girt 

 island, with its innumerable rivers, were the angling not throttled by 

 the vast array of legalised nets that threaten to destroy, or at any rate 

 reduce very heavily, the sport and profit of riparian owners. 



That much has been done and that more is being done in this 

 respect cannot be gainsaid. The allowance of longer slaps, the purchase 

 outright of netting rights in individual cases, are undoubted steps in 

 the right direction. But until the process is more universally applied 

 its effect cannot be considerable. Salmon coast along such an extent 

 of our shores before reaching their destination that bag and coast nets 

 miles away may take heavy toll of the fish that are seeking your estuary, 

 even though they would have a free run up your river if once they 

 could attain it. 



Is it too much to hope that some day a wise Government may 

 take the matter in hand, not by piecemeal legislation, but with the 

 determination of so apportioning and circumscribing the respective rights 

 of all concerned and interested, that the price of salmon as an article 

 of food may not be increased, and the true rights of both net fisherman 

 and angler may be secured ? 



