CHAPTER V 



STOCKING 



A FEW years ago it might well have been necessary to 

 open this chapter with an elaborate and carefully 

 worked-out argument to prove that there was any 

 need for stocking. Nowadays every expert, every 

 fisherman, every keeper and even some of the free- 

 holders are convinced that something of the kind must 

 be attempted if the sport obtained is to bear any 

 reasonable kind of ratio to the annual expense of any- 

 thing like good dry-fly fishing. Some of our friends 

 style it " restocking," but I beg leave to take exception 

 to the term. Restocking means restoring the stock in 

 the river to what it was at some anterior date and 

 presupposes that in olden times the chalk-streams 

 were fully stocked. Very little study of the question 

 will convince the reader that the aggregate bag of the 

 limited number of fishermen in former days was 

 immeasurably less in quantity than what is obtained 

 by the enormous number of anglers of the present time. 

 It is true that, the fishermen being so far less numerous, 

 the individual bags were greater, and thus we are told 

 of the wonderful sport our ancestors had without 

 stocking at all. 



Once having admitted that stocking is necessary, it 



378 



