SIZE OF TWEED SALMON 47 



Test, for instance, and to investigate the result 

 from year to year. 



Salmon keep on increasing in size till they 

 attain a prodigious weight, even up to eighty-three 

 pounds ; which, says Mr. Yarrell, is the largest 

 fish on record, and was exhibited at Mr. Grove's, 

 fishmonger, in Bond Street, about the season of 

 1821. This was a female fish ; and, from the 

 observation of the same eminent authority, those 

 fish which attain a very unusual size have always 

 proved to be females. 



But the devices and intelligence of fishermen 

 have increased as salmon have become more 

 marketable, so that few escape all the perils that 

 beset them long enough to gain any considerable 

 size ; and we no more hear, as in days of yore, 

 of a fish being exchanged, weight for weight, for 

 a Highland wedder, and the butcher having to 

 pay. The salmon in the Tweed are no longer 

 large ; far from it. During my experience of 

 twenty years I never caught one there above 

 thirty pounds, and very few above twenty. 1 I 

 have remarked that the largest fish are found in 

 the most considerable rivers, which I attribute to 

 the superior chance of longevity where fish have a 

 greater scope for escape. 



It appears, from the above facts and observa- 



1 In this respect there seems to have been an improvement in 

 Tweed salmon, probably owing to the protection of kelts. In 1873 a 

 salmon of 57 lb. was taken in the Tweed, one of 57 lb. in 1886, 

 one of 55 lb. in 1889, and one of 5l lb. in 1892. Fish of 40 lb. 

 and upwards are taken with the rod nearly every autumn, and from 

 30 lb. to 35 lb. is nothing unusual, especially in the lower reaches. 

 ED. 



