268 TROUT FISHING 



the most part, a matter of the wet fly and of small 

 trout, and though it has points of superiority to 

 other fishing, it does not satisfy all cravings. The 

 man who has once known the pride of a three- 

 quarter-pound average weight will always yearn 

 to repeat the experience from time to time, even 

 though he enjoys the five-to-the-pound day as 

 keenly as ever. It is, in fact, the bigger trout 

 which are hard to come by, and this is chiefly for 

 geographical reasons. The streams which naturally 

 produce them in abundance lie, for the most part, 

 near great cities and especially near London. There- 

 fore they have become highly valuable and much 

 prized. It is a significant fact that for many years 

 the only part of the Itchen on which it has been 

 possible to get day tickets has been the short length 

 at Winchester known as " Chalkley's," while on 

 the Test, so far as I know, it is not possible to get a 

 day ticket anywhere. The other chalk streams 

 are hardly more hospitable to the casual fisherman. 

 The Chess and other Buckinghamshire and Hert- 

 fordshire rivers, the Meon, Hamble, Whitewater, 

 Lyde, Wylye, Frome, Avon as trout streams, 

 these and others like them are practically closed 

 to the public. There are some small facilities on 

 the Kennet, and on the Gloucestershire Coin, but 

 generally speaking there is no public fishing in 

 any of our southern waters which rise in the chalk 



