64 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



fish weighing more than thirty-five pounds, and not 

 many reaching even to twenty-five pounds. 



The Priest, my neighbour, who fives on the banks 

 of Goolamore, told me he once killed a salmon of 

 twenty-seven pounds weight, and that the feat gave him 

 an infinity of trouble, and occupied three mortal hours. 

 The Priest fishes with tackle of amazing strength, and 

 is one of the best practical anglers I have ever met with. 

 Sir Humphry Davy mentions salmon of twenty-five 

 and thirty pounds as being commonly taken with a fly. 

 The largest I ever killed was eighteen pounds four ounces, 

 and it gave me abundant exercise for an hour. Either 

 Sir Humphry overrates the weight of Scottish salmon, 

 or in the rivers he frequented they must be immensely 

 superior to those found in the Irish waters. In the 

 Shannon, I believe, the largest fish are found, and I am 

 inclined to think that even there the capture of salmon 

 of this unusual magnitude is an event of very rare 

 occurrence. 



Pennant states " that the largest salmon ever known 

 weighed seventy-four pounds. In September, 1795, 

 one measuring upwards of four feet from nose to tail, 

 and three in circumference, weighing within a few 

 ounces of seventy pounds, was sold at Billingsgate, and 

 was the largest ever brought there. The Severn salmon 

 are much inferior as to their bulk, for one taken near 

 Shrewsbury, in 1757, weighing only thirty-seven pounds, 

 is recorded in the British Chronologist as exceeding 

 in length any ever known to be taken in that river, and 

 being the heaviest except one ever remembered in that 

 town. They have, in many parts, been caught by 

 «^^ angling, with an artificial fly and other baits, upwards 

 of forty pounds in weight," 



