FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 309 
a half, and decidedly better fed fish than those usually caught in 
the Club water even at that date, when minnows and May flies 
still abounded. A finer dish I have rarely seen; but I was 
grievously vexed at not being able to beguile one ‘most delicate 
monster,’ weighing, I am sure, full nine pounds, who more than 
once followed my minnow but was too wary to take it. Two 
years ago I saw a seven-pound fish from the same water, in 
perfect condition, and I suppose a score or so of heavy fish are 
caught there yearly; but there has been a great falling off in 
numbers. The size and flavour of these fish I attribute to the 
abundance of food. 
All along the course of the canal, and especially about the 
locks below which the trout are mostly found, the small scale 
fish seem to crowd the water, and one might fancy a trout 
revelling without effort in one perpetual feast. 
If the Driffield folks had only enterprise enough to turn in, 
say, three hundred brace of stock fish every year, there would be 
more first-rate trout—first-rate both as to size and condition— 
caught in that short stretch of inland navigation than in an 
equal length of any English river with which I am acquainted. 
There are doubtless other canals in which similar, though 
not equal, results might be attained. I remember formerly 
hearing of some good baskets made in one near Chirk. Of 
course, where there is a strong head of pike trout will stand 
but a poor chance ; otherwise, a canal carried through a good 
trouting country ought itself to be ‘troutable.’ It is, I repeat, 
a mere question of food, which will generally abound in large 
bodies of fairly clear water. 
No doubt the angler in a canal, or in one of those waste 
reaches of water which border so many of our railroads, must 
forego the poetry of his craft. Not for him are the ‘diguide 
fontes et mollia prata’—the gushing streams and _flower- 
enamelled meadows which contribute so largely to the enjoy- 
ment of a fly fisher’s ramble by brook or river. Yet to an 
artisan escaped from the weary town on a long summer’s even- 
ing or a rare holiday, his sport will bring its own enjoyment, 
