A HISTORY OF KENT 



private owners, and the rest by various local 

 clubs. 



TJie Medway contains a great variety of 

 fish — roach, bream, perch, chub, pike, tench, 

 and carp, with a few trout, and here and 

 there a nice little sprinkling of dace. There 

 are a good many deep holes, muddy at the 

 bottom and overgrown with weeds and 

 rushes, making ideal haunts for the ponderous 

 bream, which grow to a good size in situations 

 so exactly suited to their requirements. 

 Next to bream, roach and chub are most 

 numerous, the latter fish finding congenial 

 quarters beneath the shade of the many over- 

 hanging willows and alders. Here on a hot 

 summer's day, armed with a goodly supply 

 of cherries, the angler may usually secure a 

 very respectable creel of these rather lazy 

 fish. At other seasons the appetite of the 

 Medway chub takes a great deal of tempting, 

 and, like the trout, he is very spasmodic in 

 his manner of feeding. 



Except in autumn and winter, when 

 the Medway is subject to sudden floods 

 which, however, subside almost as quickly 

 as they rise, the river is slow running, and 

 although it quickly recovers its level after a 

 spate, it takes several days to fine down to a 

 colour suitable for fishing. At such times 

 the angler will do best to concentrate his 

 attention on some of the smaller tributaries 

 of the river. During the winter months, 

 however, when the water is somewhat thick 

 and discoloured, fair sport may occasionally 

 be had with the roach. In frosty weather 

 good pike are frequently taken. 



Angling competitions, in which a large 

 number of London anglers participate each 

 season, are very popular upon the Medway. 

 The Tonbridge Angling Association looks 

 after a distance of some eight miles of the 

 upper reaches of the Medway and its 

 tributaries, commencing at Ensfield Bridge 

 near Penshurst, and extending to East Lock 

 near East Peckham, where the Maidstone 

 Angling Society takes over the management. 

 Above Tonbridge the tributaries of the Med- 

 way are of a very winding character, with 

 sharp bends and steep shady banks, some- 

 what difficult to fish but affording ideal 

 haunts for fish of many kinds. 



Fly is not much used on these waters, but 

 there are a few places where the water lends 

 itself readily to the higher branches of the 

 art. Both the Tonbridge Angling Associa- 

 tion and the Maidstone Angling Society 

 issue day tickets to non-members. Further 

 down the river at Yalding and Wateringbury 

 there is plenty of free fishing to be had. At 

 Yalding, during the season of 1906, some 



good specimen roach up to 2 lb. apiece were 

 taken. 



Night-fishing for bream is a sport that 

 is extensively practised in the Medway. The 

 fish feed best late in the evening, and again 

 in the small hours of the morning, but fair 

 baskets are occasionally taken during the 

 day. The custom of ground-baiting a few 

 particular holes or ' swims ' for several days 

 in succession is generally adopted, and yields 

 good results when the river is not too full 

 of water. Warm, close weather is the best 

 for this method of angling. Visitors to 

 Medway waters will be struck by the use of 

 a species of bait not to be met with, so far as 

 we know, in any other part of the kingdom. 

 The local anglers are credited with having 

 discovered the killing power of this lure, 

 \^'hich consists of pieces of cotton-seed (or 

 cattle cake) broken up small and incorporated 

 with bran, the mixture being used in the 

 form of a ground-bait. Some anglers use 

 a little of the cake upon the hook, working 

 it up into a paste with bread, and the method 

 is said to yield very good results with roach 

 and bream. 



Chub are taken occasionally in the Medway 

 by the fly, to which, when the fancy takes 

 them, they will rise fairly satisfactorily and 

 afford good sport. A big Palmer, or Zulu 

 tied rather large, or a wasp fly is the most 

 suitable on these occasions. Cheese-paste 

 and lob-worms are also used with ledger or 

 float tackle, and young frogs or caterpillars 

 may be tried when the fish are in sulky mood. 

 Speaking generally, the best winter baits in 

 the Medway for roach, bream, chub, perch 

 and dace are paste, bread-crust, gentles, and 

 red-worms. 



There are so few instances of waters 

 which have been rendered useless for fish- 

 ing being restored to their original good 

 condition, that cases of the kind may be 

 considered worthy of special mention. 

 Kent can provide a ver}^ good example of 

 this desirable state of things in the case of the 

 Stour, for at one time Fordwich and Canter- 

 bury were ports and did such good business 

 in the commercial world that the angler had 

 no opportunity for indulging in his pastime. 

 Indeed, it seems impossible to believe that 

 where the fisherman now plies his rod for 

 roach and casts the delicate fly for trout, 

 the Stour was once the scene of great com- 

 mercial activity and full of ships and shipping. 

 It is said that the river in those days had its 

 mouth near what is now known as Pluck's 

 Gutter — a favourite pitch for anglers below 

 Grove Ferry, not far from Margate — flowing 

 into an arm of the sea which separated the Isle 



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