IN THE MIDLANDS. 109 



bar keeper or himself miijht come to my assistance. He then went to 

 a public-house at a short distance from the turnpike liouse for refresh- 

 ment, and had not been gone many minutes, when to my great sur- 

 prise and delight, I felt two smart strokes at the line, which then ran 

 out furiously, whilst I called out lustily, to the extent of my voice, and 

 soon brought both my friend and the gatekeeper to my assistance. 

 They were just in time to turn the fish before it had run out the extent 

 of the line. A boat was procured, and assistance given on the water to 

 the angler on the bridge, and, after nearly an hour's labour and 

 anxiety, the fish was landed, and proved to be a salmon, in beautiful 

 condition, weighing eighteen pounds and a half; so that I may say (in 

 one sense) I caught a salmon at nine years of age, a circumstance 

 which, undoubtedly, greatly fed my early passion for angling, and 

 might have been a foundation for my becoming a great salmon-fisher, 

 but circumstances have prevented me from having much practice in 

 this noble branch of our art." 



The moral to which I call the reader's attention is con- 

 tained in the query — Where are those salmon? Let 

 Messrs. Buckland and Walpole answer where, for is it not in 

 their power to bring them back? Near Newark (where 

 the best dace shallows are to be found, let me interject) I 

 saw a salmon leaping last year ; the year before I saw what 

 everybody said was a salmon — and appearances favoured 

 the supposition — rising repeatedly a few miles below 

 Nottingham town. 



Would you not consider sixteen dozen of dace, the lawful 

 capture of the artificial fly, a pretty decent day's sport ? I 

 saw it with my own eyes done by a Nottingham angler, on 

 a July day. It was at a part of the river where, broad 

 though it is, you may wade across : and wade you must to 

 do the best that can be done. This dace-master had 

 occupied the same compartment of the train as I had, and 

 had courteously, considering my strangerhood, offered to 

 show me the best shallows and to place his fly-book at my 

 disposal. He laid stress upon the latter because a special 



