ODDS AND ENDS 287 



results on the fishing. The contention is that too 

 much returning makes trout bad risers and that 

 the sport suffers by a large proportion of the older 

 fish being abnormally suspicious. There may be 

 something in this, but I do not think it a very 

 serious risk. Fish have not long memories and I 

 doubt if the sense of perils past lasts through the 

 close time into a new season. A grave objection to 

 returning fish is the possible physical effects of mis- 

 handling. This will almost certainly affect the 

 condition of the trout, interfere with that good 

 digestion which is necessary to their growth, and so 

 prevent their becoming sizeable in the normal time. 

 I suspect that some of the lanky, ill-conditioned 

 creatures which are found in our rivers are fish 

 which have been injured in this way. 



While one admits that returning trout may have 

 bad results, it is difficult to see what alternative there 

 is, at any rate for waters which are much fished 

 and where the stock is not practically unlimited. 

 A suggestion that anglers should keep everything 

 they catch would plainly be impracticable. The 

 best policy seems to be to adopt the length rather 

 than the weight standard, and to add, if possible, a 

 few precepts to the rules, one being that where a 

 rising fish is plainly undersized (on the dry-fly 

 rivers, at least, this is generally pretty obvious), 

 the angler should refrain from casting to it, and 



