6 MAKING A FISHER1. 



It is difficult to arrive at any fair notion of the 

 average size of the trout in the river from any 

 description given, whether by proprietor, agent, 

 keeper, neighbour, or even fisherman. One 

 and all are so prone to estimate and not weigh 

 fish, that their estimates are invariably too high. 

 I can give a curious instance of this : After two 

 seasons' fishing on a piece of water where all 

 trout, &c, were weighed and carefully registered, 

 a most respectable professional man residing in 

 a village adjoining the stream, who had fished 

 the water for many years, asked me about the 

 results of our fishing. I told him accurately 

 from the figures that we had killed over 700 

 trout, averaging lib. 90Z. He, in reply, 

 expressed his disappointment at both the 

 number and the average weight. Knowing 

 that in former years it had almost invariably 

 been fished with sunk fly, and that hence it 

 was most improbable that the average weight 

 of the fish killed should have been equal to 

 that achieved by essentially dry-fly fishermen, 

 I asked him a series of questions. His replies, 

 summarised, amounted to this : That the limit 

 of size under the old regime was gin. ; that the 

 fishermen never weighed their fish, but took it 

 as a rule that a pin. trout weighed lib. The 

 absurdity of this method of estimating weight 

 is only too apparent, seeing that, a gin. trout in 



