io6 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



The Trent, notwithstanding the proverbial variety of its 

 finny population, is chiefly interesting to the angler for its 

 dace, barbel, and pike. Sport with them may be reckoned 

 upon at times and in places where nothing else could be 

 procured. Persons familiar with the river and its deeps 

 find it worthy of all their attention as a haunt of pike. 

 Here and there — and it is yearly becoming still more " here 

 and there" — you may pick up a grayling. The Trent was 

 once a noted grayling stream, and Hofland, one of the ftiost 

 reliable of angling authorities, a pleasant writer, and a prince 

 of fly-fishers and fly-makers, thought well thirty years ago of 

 the river in that character. A few grayling are still caught 

 every season, but they are fast disappearing. Salmon, 

 though not unknown in the Trent, are also few and far 

 between. 



As to barbel, take the following quotation from a pub- 

 lished paragraph : " Mr. B. and a friend captured over too 

 pounds in one day near Colingham, and Mr. C. and a friend 

 sent over 80 pounds on Wednesday night, with instructions 

 to meet the trains every night, for they were hooking them 

 every swim. Some were over nine pounds each.'' 



I saw a pretty afternoon's sport one August day under 

 the lee of a lonely wood below Lowdham. A groom and 

 two friends in a boat, after a few swims finding no bites, 

 went ashore for ,an hour and returned. The barbel at the 

 previous trial were splashing like porpoises and turning over 

 on the top of the water ; now they were still as mice, and 

 the three men at their first swim were fast to a fish each. 

 So they went on catching great ruddy brown lively fellows 

 which gave capital sport, and required every one of them 

 careful playing and a strong landing net. The bottom of 



