58 NORTH-COUNTRY FLIES. 



lively small stream up to the point at which it is hopelessly 

 polluted, the Derwent, and the Rye are little inferior to the 

 Wharfe, the Rye in particular being excellent for both trout 

 and grayling. The Ure is best as a grayling river. The 

 Ribble, in its upper waters, has plenty of trout and odd 

 grayling between Sawley and Settle : and the Nidd is not 

 unlikely to figure as one of the best trout streams in the 

 county, owing to sustained and well-directed breeding 

 operations at Knaresborough. 



South country anglers who are not altogether unac- 

 customed to land three, four, or even six-pound fish from 

 the Wey or the Test, contemptuously dismiss the trout of 

 Yorkshire and other north country streams as " herring 

 size," and it must be admitted that, excepting Driffield, any 

 river in the three ridings must be very well whipped before 

 it is likely to produce a three-pound trout. Not that such 

 fish cannot occasionally be found, notably in the lower 

 reaches of the Wharfe, in the Hull, and here and there in 

 the Aire, but these fish have long since been educated to a 

 point far beyond the ability of the ordinary fly-fisher, and 

 by an adverse arrangement of luck they usually fall victims 

 to some local hand who sallies out in a flood, armed with a 

 stick, a piece of string, and an eel-hook, baited with a worm 

 almost as long as a young boa-constrictor. 



Putting aside Driffield, as differing from all other York- 

 shire waters, the best trout fishing in the county is that of 

 the Kilnsey Angling Club, on the higher reaches of the 

 Wharfe, and that of the Aire Club, above Skipton, the fish 

 on these lengths averaging better than three to a pound. 

 The Kilnsey water holds no grayling, though this fish is 

 plentiful below. The Aire contains grayling, which are 

 increasing, and for the table its trout are probably superior 

 to any in the county. 



The size, quality, and quantity of trout are naturally 



