A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



The Ribble is the best angling river in Lanca- 

 shire to-day, but that is only in its upper reaches 

 near Clitheroe, and most of the fish taken in this 

 river are caught outside our county. The Lune 

 was noted for its salmon later than the Mersey, 

 as can be seen in the records of R. Brock in the 

 year 1740, in which he says that the River Lune 

 in Lancashire is so overstocked with salmon that 

 servants were not to be fed on it more than 

 twice a week. There is very fair fishing to be 

 obtained near Liverpool in the Rivington Reser- 

 voirs belonging to the corporation ; fly only is 

 allowed except in the Lower Rivington Reser- 

 voirs and the Lower Paddlesworth and Rake 

 Brook Reservoirs ; no wading is allowed, and 

 Sunday fishing is taboo. In these reservoirs are 

 Loch Leven trout, and the season is from 

 15 March to 30 September. The Liverpool 

 Angling Association has private fishing in a lake 

 of Knowsley, where there are principally coarse 

 fish, with a few trout and grayling. There is 

 good fishing to be obtained from the association 

 in the neighbourhood of St. Helens ; and there 

 are trout in the strictly-preserved New Dam at 

 Garswood, and in the Carr Mill Dam, the pro- 

 perty of Sir David Gamble. 



A pretty little stream called the Loud joins 

 the Hodder about one mile below Dorford Bridge, 

 and some good-sized brown trout live in it. 

 This fishing is strictly preserved. Nice bags of 

 small trout can be had from EUenbrook, a 

 tributary of the Douglas, near Rufford. 



Though the fishing in the rivers has thus 

 deteriorated, bright spots still remain, and these 

 are to be found in Windermere and Coniston 

 Water. Though Windermere really belongs to 

 Westmorland, three-quarters of its banks are 

 in Lancashire, and may be considered in our 

 sun'ey of Lancashire angling. There are quan- 

 tities of trout in both these lakes, but they are 

 more notable for a fish which is peculiar to these 

 waters. This fish is the charr {Salmo Jl'Ulughhii). 

 It is mentioned by Willoughby, Pennant, Donovan, 

 and other writers as being caught in nets, and 

 much esteemed for the table. A very closely 

 allied species is found in Loch Bruiach, in the 

 north of Scotland. There are two species of 

 charr, the red and the silver, and they spawn at 

 different times and under different conditions. 

 Before the application of the fishing law, con- 

 siderable quantities of the fish were taken in the 

 net when, in the months of October and Novem- 

 ber, the charr sought the shallower portions of 

 the lake for spawning. 



A writer in Land and JVater speaks thus of 

 the charr of Windermere : — 



Though charr exists in other lakes, Windermere 

 is doubtless its headquarters. The largest charr I have 

 ever seen exceeded two pounds in weight, though about 

 half a pound may be set as its average full-grown size, 

 and a fish of 3 oz. will often take the bait. They are 

 bold biters at fly, spoon, or minnow. Though this 

 implies that they feed on the surface, the conjecture 

 that they feed chiefly on the bottom is not thereby re- 

 futed, for a practice has lately been introduced of trail- 

 ing a revolving bait from a plummet sunk deep in the 

 water, the revolution being kept up, in the depths as 

 on the surface, by the motion of the boat. The fish- 

 ing for charr by bait, though best in the spring, is 

 carried on successfully for the whole of the summer. 

 The favourite places for fishing are the deepest parts 

 of the lake. They also run up the rivers, or, as it 

 would be more correct to say, into a river, for though 

 two rivers fall into Windermere at its head, forming 

 a junction half a mile above the lake, the charr never go 

 up the Rothay, yet in myriads turn oil' at the fork into 

 the Brathay. Any cause for its preference has hitherto 

 been sought in vain. The rivers run through two 

 neighbouring valleys, the geological formation of which 

 is the same. 



The flesh of the charr, when fried like a trout, is 

 pink. Potted charr is a regular institution in Lanca- 

 shire and is highly prized. The difference of the 

 Windermere charr, and the allied Welsh one is thus 

 described by Dr. Gunthcr: — 'The base of the pectoral 

 is entirely free, and not overlapped by the gill covers 

 apparatus. The nostrils are situated immediately be- 

 fore the eye : posterior is wider and the cutaneous 

 bridge between the two is not developed into a flap.' 



Mr. Palmer does not hold with the theory 

 that the two kinds of charr are two different 

 varieties of the fish, as he states that ' though they 

 are supposed to spawn in November and Febru- 

 ary respectively, yet the information then, and 

 now, hardly justified the idea.' 



The charr loves cold water, and feeds at 

 varying depths ; to-day it may be in a shoal 

 within ten feet of the surface, and to-morrow as 

 much as one hundred feet below. During mid- 

 summer the charr are bottom-feeders, and the 

 only way to catch them is with a long 

 central line heavily weighted, to which two 

 smaller lines are attached at intervals ; this is not 

 at all an easy bait for a tyro to use, because of 

 the way the smaller lines have of twisting them- 

 selves round the central one. 



Besides these two lakes, there are several 

 smaller waters, or tarns as they are called. The 

 best of these is Esthwaite Water, which is about 

 four miles west of Windermere. 



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