THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



Salmo solar attains a large size. I shall never forget the 

 models of this splendid fish I saw ia England. A fifty-seven and 

 a half pounder has been taken. Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell 

 gives the record to a female of eighty-three pounds. Penant 

 refers to a seventy-four pounder. In 1789 a seventy pounder 

 was taken in the Thames near Falham. An eighty pounder was 

 netted in the Tay. The South Kensington Museum shows one of 

 sixty-nine pounds from the Ehine. Fifty-one to fifty-four pound- 

 ers have been taken in the Shannon. The Tay has produced 

 fifty-three, fifty-one, and forty-nine and a half pound salmon, and 

 the Wye a fifty-pound fish. On the Tweed a salmon was caught 

 in 1886 in the Floors Castle water, by Mr. Pryor, Hylands Chelms- 

 ford, weighing fifty-seven and a half pounds, fifty-three inches in 

 length and twenty-eight and a half inches in girth. In the Fishing 

 Gazette I find the following : 1870, Mr. Haggard, in the Tay, sixty- 

 one pounds ; 1874, the Suir, Tipperary, fifty-seven pounds ; 1875, 

 Derwent, fifty-five and a half pounds ; 1877, in the Awe, Mr. J. 

 B. Lawes, fifty-four pounds ; 1884, in the Dee (Floors water), 

 Mr. Pryor, fifty-seven and a haU pounds ; 1889, on the Mentoun, 

 Lord Polworth's water, fifty-five pounds ; 1892, the Derwent, 

 fifty-six pounds ; 1895, the Tay, Lord Zetland, fifty-five pounds, 

 the Eden, fifty-five pounds. 



These splendid examples afford the reader some idea of the 

 possibilities of this noble fish, the ideal game of the gentleman 

 angler. 



In every salmon stream there are ' casts ' or lies — ^places 

 affected by salmon where they make a temporary home or abiding 

 place. I have seen the same with trout, and it is an important 

 feature of the art to know and understand all about these places. 

 A friend who, it happened, was on a hill over such a pool in 

 Canada, saw four salmon poisiag low, side by side. A twig came 

 downstream. One salmon rose, seized it and carried it down- 

 stream, releasing it, then wheeling round took its exact place. 

 This was repeated several times. I have seen a rainbow trout 

 that seemingly had riparian and exasperating rights, behind 

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