50 



anglers who frequent the river regularly. The 

 largest and best fish are caught in this way. 



It is likewise worthy of remark, that this long 

 range of the Clyde, that is, from the entrance of the 

 Douglas Water to the highest springs of the main 

 stream, is much damaged by net-fishing. It is 

 astonishing, as well as lamentable, to hear of such 

 quantities of fine trout taken by this murderous and 

 unmanly method. The angling is also greatly im- 

 paired from the practice of fly-fishing with double 

 rods ; one person at each side of the river, with a 

 line stretched right across, baited with perhaps 

 forty or fifty artificial flies, suspended from it. This 

 unfair contrivance has, indeed, been put down in 

 some districts of the river, but it still prevails to a 

 shameful extent in other localities. 



All unfair modes of fishing tend to destroy the 

 real pleasure attending the art. This has been the 

 prevailing sentiment among all the disciples of the 

 rod and line in England from the earliest times of 

 her angling literature. More than two centuries 

 ago, in 1646, we have some verses, of a quaint cast 

 certainly, written by Llewellyn, in his " Men Mira- 

 cles," in which the writer rails and satyrises the 

 encroachments upon the gentlemanly modes of fish- 

 ing in his own day, in no very courteous and mea- 

 sured terms : 



"You that fish for dace and roches, 

 Carpes and tenches, bonus noches, 

 Thou was borne betweene two dishes, 

 When the Fry day signe was fishes. 



