128 MAKING A FISHERY. 



respected honorary secretary (Mr. H. Collins) 

 succeeded in finding and obtaining a lease 

 (which they gladly adopted) of upwards of ten 

 miles of the river Wylye. It extended from 

 about half a mile above the village of Steeple 

 Langford to the town of Wilton, and the name 

 was accordingly changed to the Wilton Fly 

 Fishing Club. On this length of water every- 

 thing had been neglected. The shallows had 

 not been cleaned ; the weeds were cut or not 

 according to the fancy of the millers and 

 farmers ; pike and coarse fish had been allowed 

 to increase and multiply ; poachers had worked 

 their wicked ways unchecked ; and, it is 

 perhaps needless to add, no stocking had been 

 attempted. 



Systematic killing down of pike and other 

 coarse fish amounted in the aggregate for the 

 years 1890, 1891, 1892, and 1893 to no less 

 than 3619 pike and 13,056 other coarse fish. 

 Stocking was during the same period carried 

 out on a most liberal scale, over 4000 trout of 

 two years old and upwards, over 16,000 year- 

 lings, 45,000 fry, and 24,000 ova having been 

 introduced, as well as 534 grayling (averaging 

 1 Jib.), 500 yearlings, and 35,000 ova. 



Here was a typical case of a thoroughly 

 neglected chalk stream, the value of which, in 

 its then depleted condition, was quite nominal. 



