100 FLY FISHING AND SPINNING 



of some portion of the best trout stream available. As an 

 instance in point, I can refer to the Itchen Trout Breeding 

 Establishment, in Hampshire, the breeding pounds of 

 which are directly in the flow of the Itchen River at Lower 

 Chilland, Itchen Abbas. 



With the exception of the hatcheries themselves, in which 

 spring water is used, all the troughs, boxes, pounds, etc., 

 are directly treated to a plentiful supply of river water ; 

 the fry i.e., the young trout immediately after passing 

 out of the alevin or yoke-sac period are brought up directly 

 in the life-bearing and cool waters of the Itchen, and the 

 consequence is that, both as yearlings, as two-year-old fish 

 and onwards, the size and healthiness of all the trout are 

 phenomenal. 



THE DESCRIPTION OF A TROUT FISHERY 



In order to illustrate the natural conditions of these 

 remarkable breeding pounds, I have shown my readers 

 in Plate XL, a portion of these pounds as they occur in 

 the bed of the stream looking up stream. 



This Plate shows the upper pound in which the stock 

 fish (from three to five pounds) are kept. The river 

 is here screened off and so controlled by hatches that the 

 entire flow of the River Itchen (here a considerable stream) 

 can be poured through the stock pounds. The surplus 

 current of the river runs over a weir to the right, and while 

 the screens placed across so rapid a river as the Itchen 

 require careful, and during weed cutting operations constant 

 attention, the advantages to the fish of having the natural 

 flow of the river water is great. The keepers are shown as 

 standing on the lower screens of the upper pounds, and 

 immediately above the upper end of the pound for two years 

 old fish, which extends for 200 yards down stream. 



Below this is the home stretch devoted to eight-inch 



