46 MAKING A FISHERY. 



of dense masses of weed will also assist many 

 hooked fish in escaping, but knowledge of the 

 best method of handling hooked fish among 

 weeds will, to a certain degree, enable the angler 

 to overcome this difficulty. It may be inferred 

 from the foregoing that the crux of successful 

 management is to arrive at a happy medium 

 between the drastic method of shaving close, 

 thus destroying the food of the fish and 

 rendering them abnormally shy, and the laisser 

 alter policy of leaving the river overgrown 

 with heavy beds of weed, and rendering it 

 unfishable. In the case of the rapid streams of 

 the north, where the weeds are usually more or 

 less conspicuous by their absence, anything like 

 systematic cutting is needless. When dealing, 

 however, with south-country chalk streams, 

 where there is naturally a superabundance of 

 vegetable growth, the degree to which, and 

 times at which the weeds should be cut, is a 

 question requiring patient and intelligent study. 

 Weed cutting Where water is let by the season the weed 

 cutting is usually -undertaken by the lessor. 

 Such, at least, is the theory ; but in practice he 

 generally shirks the greater part of this respon- 

 sibility. If there are mills on the property he 

 relies on the knowledge that the miller must, in 

 his own interest, cut the weeds when their 

 growth and luxuriance exceed a certain point, to 



