208 ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT FISHERIES 



I have caught an occasional char with fly in both 

 Windermere and Haweswater but, in the former, 

 always when fishing for trout. When the angler is 

 successful with trout in Haweswater, he is almost 

 certain to have a char or two among his catch ; 

 and, as an experiment only, the char may be fished 

 for here with fair prospects of, at least, some suc- 

 cess. Almost any red or dark brown fly will do if 

 dressed on sufficiently small hooks. Char feed 

 greedily upon the green drake and bracken-clock 

 in season, and in autumn they may be seen sucking 

 down the winged ant. It is somewhat remarkable 

 that in June, when there is the greatest quantity of 

 flies and other surface food, that char are then 

 bottom feeders. 



These facts are only another way of saying 

 that the char is not a sporting fish and this it must 

 be confessed is the fact. Every angler is interested 

 in the char but not for the sport it affords. It is 

 not only our most beautiful freshwater fish, but the 

 most mysterious. 



A peculiarity concerning Windermere char is the 

 irregular way in which they feed. Occasionally 

 they take freely at one end of the lake, whilst 

 nothing is doing at the other and this is not be- 

 cause the fish are absent. Then again, especially 

 in summer, the area over which they "take" is 

 extremely limited. For instance, for weeks during 

 1896 no fish could be got except in the two miles 

 at the north end of the lake ; whilst during the 

 summer of 1897 scarcely any char were obtained 

 in the same stretch of water. Many anglers and 

 fishermen believe that the char from the north and 

 south ends of the lake never pass the islands 

 these being about midway in the lake ; also 



