SELECTION OF A WATER 307 



Since then very little improvement has been 

 attempted until within the last few years, but it has 

 been let generally for single seasons at rents varying 

 from the original figure asked twenty-five years ago to 

 as much as five or six times this amount. Latterly, 

 as the result of the policy referred to in a later chapter 

 of this part of the book on "Stocking," a number of 

 the degenerate, stew-fed, overgrown, unhealthy trout 

 have been introduced. A few more fish have since 

 been landed each season, but it can hardly be con- 

 sidered as sport by the dry-fly man to rise and hook 

 these with any fly, to tow them into the landing-net 

 and to find them repulsive, loathsome, lanky, black 

 specimens, unfit for the table, long enough to weigh 

 3 lb., but registering on the spring-balance perhaps 

 no more than i^ to 1^ lb. 



The prudent man, before taking a piece of water, 



should make a careful and pro- 



Character of water. longed inspection of it himself. 



The ideal stretch of a chalk- 

 stream contains both deep and shallow parts, swift 

 runs and quiet deep reaches. The shallows ought to 

 be of a nature to enable the trout to spawn. If the 

 inspection takes place in January or February the 

 presence of spawning fish will be most evident, and 

 later than this, even well into the spring, an observant 

 man will detect the heaps of clean gravel or redds 

 where the ova have been deposited by the trout 

 during the spawning season. If there are salmon in 

 the river, their redds too will be visible, and except for 



