CONTINENTAL STATES. 173 



Now, to commence near our own door, France is a country 

 possessing* great angling capabilities, and where there has been a 

 considerable portion of British enterprise in this line for the last 

 forty years. But it is an extensive country, and possesses great 

 and numerous rivers which it would be impossible for us here to 

 describe. All we can do is merely to point out certain districts of 

 the kingdom where rod-fishing will readily be met with, and leave 

 the tourist to his own resources. 



The department of the^Ptfs de Calais, which embraces, among 

 others, the towns of Calais, Dvinkerque, Boulogne, and St. Omer, 

 is a great rendezvous for British anglers not that they make the 

 " gentle art " a primary object, but they carry it with them to eke 

 out the paucity of enjoyments for their stirring and excitable 

 temperaments. But this section of France is not anything like a 

 first-rate fishing locality. There is bottom-fishing, but not good 

 river fly-fishing. There is a want of the mountain streams for this 

 purpose. t The country all the way to Paris being comparatively 

 flat, the rivers are thick, ]yuddley, and sluggish. But the English, 

 when they go to the Continent, practise bottom-fishing much more 

 frequently, and with a keener relish, than they do in their own 

 country. This may partly be accounted for on the principle of 

 necessity, for our national partiality for all kinds of manly out-door 

 sports makes us rush into everything productive of excitement, 

 without scanning very fastidiously the exact bearings or nature of 

 the thing itself. 



There" is good bottom-fishing in the vicinity of Calais. A few- 

 years since we counted, within eight miles of this town, on the 

 banks of the canal to St. Omer, twenty -three English anglers in one 

 clay, zealously prosecuting their calling. All were fishing for pike, 

 or perch. On New Year's Day, 1843, a friend of ours caught nine 

 pike of ekiit pounds and upwards each. They have been taken 

 out of this and the Dunkirk Canal eighteen and twenty pounds. 

 There are large "roach, dace, and bream, in all the waters of this 

 department. The fly-fishing about Calais is confined to two small 

 streams, the Laracoise, and one that flows by Marquise. They are 

 scarcely worth visiting. 



There are a few trout in the river Lianne at Boulogne ; and the 

 higher the angler advances up its waters, the more numerous they 

 are. It is, however, but an insignificant stream. 



There is trout-fishing in the Aa, which flows by St. Omer, and 

 verv large and rich trout too. The higher sections of the stream 

 are the most fruitful of sport. These are situated about ten miles 

 above the town of Eauquembergues, near to the famous battle 

 field of Agincourt, where our countrymen so bravely displayed 

 their^ valour four hundred years a,^o. But the best fly-fishing 

 district in the whole Pas de' Calais is Hesdin, on the river Cauclie 

 and its tributaries. It is excellent fishing in all these streams, and 

 the success from trolling is often, great. The trout are taken here 

 of eight and ten pounds weight. 



