February 4, 1893] 
THE FISHING GAZETTE 
73 
iEotes anir (J^utrics 
We note that fry of the celebrated Houghton 
Club strain are advertised for sale in our columns. 
The Yacht Exhibition at the Royal Aqua- 
RiUJi. —We strongly advise our readers who care 
to see a splendid collection of yachts, boats, &c., 
not to miss the exhibition now open at the 
Aquarium, Westminster. Mr. W. Hearder, of 
Plymouth, has an exhibit of mounted lines for 
sea fishing, cases of artificial baits, modes of the 
otter trawl, Ac. _ 
Position of the Reel on the Rod. —“ Mr. R. 
B. Marston has read, in Shooting and Fishing, what 
has been said regarding the position of the reel 
on the rod. He reprinted one of my articles on 
the subject, in the Fishing GazHte, without com¬ 
ment, but writes me personally: ‘ I always use 
the reel held down under rod with handle on right 
side. It may be wrong in theory, hut I have got 
used to it in thirty years and am not going to 
change now. A few of my friends put the reel 
on with handle to the left, and turn the rod over 
to play a fish, so the reel comes on top with handle 
to the right. One of them lent me his rod one 
day, and I could scarcely use the reel at all. 
Ninety out of one hundred anglers here use the 
reel as I do.’ Mr. Marston makes a drawing of 
his reel and butt end of rod, to show the position 
of former, and this shows a click reel on a fly rod. 
It will be noticed that Mr. Marston uses his reel 
in the same way that Mr. Orvis describes as the 
manner in which he uses his reel, and this is just 
opposite to the way in which I use a fly reel. I 
think that the proportion of the anglers who use 
the fly reel underneath, in this country, is about 
the same as that which Mr. Marston gives for 
England ; namely, 90 out of 100. I have always 
maintained that those who use the fly reel in 
trout fishing as Mr. Marston uses his, were 
largely in the majority in this country, and it 
seems that the same is true of anglers in Great 
Britain. In a letter from Mr. Marston, written 
last spring, he makes a drawing of an angler in 
the act of making a cast with bait rod. The reel 
is on the end of the rod in the same place that a 
reel is fixed for fly fishing. The left hand of the 
angler grasps the reel with the ends of the 
fingers on the line on the reel-spool, and the right 
hand grasps the rod well above the reel. Of 
course this is a two-handed cast, and the red is 
different from the one used in this country for 
bait casting. In making even this brief mention, 
I am anticipating an article on the subject which 
I propose to write later, when I have had an 
epportunity to practice with a reel and line that 
Mr. Marston has sent me from England for the 
purpose.”—A. N. Cheney in Shooting and Fishing, 
Boston, U.S.A. 
Eden Conservancy Bo.aed. —At a special meet¬ 
ing of the Eden Conservancy Board, held in the 
month of December, it was resolved, by a small 
majority, to adopt the following bye-laws, making 
a change in the close season in the Solway : “ The 
annual close season for netting salmon above the 
Solway Viaduct, in the public or common waters 
within the Eden or fishery district, shall com¬ 
mence on the 1st day of October, and terminate 
on the 3rd day of March following, both days in¬ 
clusive.” Before the new bye-law became opera¬ 
tive, it was necessary that it should be confirmed 
by the Board of Trade. It is stated that that 
body has declined to confirm the bye-law. 
An American Notice of the Ely-Fishers’ 
Club Dinner. —Mr. A. Nelson Cheney, angling 
editor of Shooting and Fishing, and one of the 
American honorary members of the club, has the 
following note in his paper of Jan. 12:—“The 
annual dinner of the Fly-Fishers’ Club, London, 
it being the ninth since organization, was held the 
evening of Dec. 7. Mr. F. M. Halford, author of 
‘ Dry Fly-Fishing in Theory and Practice,’ &c., 
presided. Every year since the organization of 
the club, I have made some mention of the annual 
dinner, and each time with regret that I had not 
space to say more. This is no exception to what 
has become the rule. I would like to say some¬ 
thing of Mr. Halford’s speech, something of Mr. 
Marston’s speech, something of Mr. Easil Field’s 
speech, something of Mr. Blundell’s speech, and, 
in fact, something of all the speeches, for they are 
just as good reading for American anglers as for 
English anglers, but I must confine myself to 
something Mr. Senior said in his speech. In 
speaking of the club library, he said the club, it 
might be noted, bred its own authors, and most 
of the recent books upon angling in the library 
were written by members of the club. He cited 
Mr. Halford, Mr. Edward Marston, ‘ John Bicken- 
dyke,’ Mr. R. B. Marston, Mr. Frazer Sandeman, 
and others seated at the table about him, and 
continued thus; ‘I want you to think very 
kindly of the angling author. He is not like the 
ordinary run of writing men. There is my col¬ 
league of twenty-five years ago in journalism’ 
(this referred to Mr. Wm. Black at Mr. Senior’s 
table), ‘ whose works of fiction have pleased mil¬ 
lions of people, and who can write about fishing 
without making angling readers blush for him. 
Let us take our chairman, too. He fishes, he 
studies the fish, the insects, the weather, the 
earth, the skies ; he conceives ideas and graces 
his book with them. This is how the angling 
author has to work. Full of knowledge himself, 
he wishes to impart to others the happiness he 
himself enjoys and feels. He is a man who 
thinks that the knowledge that he has gained by 
virtue of many wet jackets and empty baskets 
will be of use to his brother anglers, so he simply 
goes into print because he must. I commend, 
therefore, the angling author to your kindness 
and prayerful consideration, and, if there should 
be any publishers present, I do implore them, 
when next a pale-faced young man comes to them 
with a quarter of a hundred foolscap, entitled 
“ The Ninety-five Spined Stickleback, and How 
to Rise Him,” or “The Angler in Search of a 
Rod,” they will remember he is not one of the 
ordinary gang, but a simple, confiding child 
of Nature, who deserves their protection and 
encouragement.’ ” 
Alleged Pollution or the Blackwater Stream 
BELOW Aldershot. —At a meeting of the Hamp¬ 
shire County Council at the County Hall, Win¬ 
chester, last week, Mr. Martineau, in accordance 
with notice, brought forward the question of the 
polluting of the Blackwater. He moved “ That 
it be an instruction to the General Purposes 
Committee, in view of the fact that the River 
Blackwater in this county is greatly polluted by 
the discharge of sewage from the town of Aider- 
shot to such an extent as to endanger the health of 
the inhabitants of the several parishes through 
which it flows, to take such steps under the pro¬ 
vision of the 14th Section of the Local Govern¬ 
ment Act, 1888, as the Committee may deem 
expedient, for the purpose of preventing such 
pollution, and to report to the Council.” He 
spoke at some length in support of the motion, 
mentioning what had previously been done with 
regard to the Blackwater, including the in¬ 
junction granted by the County Court Judge at 
Aldershot in 188G. Mr. Eve spoke in defence of 
the Aldershot Local Board, and said it was not 
true that Aldershot for the past three years had 
been throwing its sewage into the Blackwater, 
and quoted an analysis by Professor Attfield of 
the effluent water which ran from the sewage 
works into the river. He held that the con¬ 
tamination of the Blackwater was traceable else¬ 
where than to Aldershot, and suggested that a 
joint committee of Hants, Berks, and Surrey 
should be formed under the Rivers Pollution Act 
to deal with the subject. Mr. Martineau said it 
was the effluent which came from the sewage 
works that they complained of. Mr. Deverell’s 
amendment was accepted, and the name of Mr. 
Martineau was added to the committee for the 
purpose of the inquiry.—J. E. W. 
Growth of Black Bass. —“ This, I confess, not¬ 
withstanding I had implicit confidence in their 
making a rapid growth, astonished me much. I 
had always been a believer in heavy feeding, and 
felt satisfied that the amount of growth that 
would be derived in a certain time depended 
mainly upon the quantity of feed that had been 
consumed. This led me to speculate where these 
bass obtained their food, confined as they were in 
a very small body of water containing some eight 
hundred fish, and immediately below my ponds 
containing some forty thousand salmon, young 
and older. For the purpose of ascertaining this, 
I made my bass frequent visits, and by remaining 
quietly secreted on the banks, soon discovered the 
source of their supply. One day as I was thus 
occupied, in company with my eldest boy, he 
called my attention to the fact that a snake 
[Troiiidonotvs grhami) was leisurely swimming 
through their midst. At first I felt inclined to 
pursue the snake, fearing that he might in some 
manner injure, if not destroy, a large portion of 
my native stock. My fears were, however, 
speedily terminated by one of my larger bass 
making a rapid dart at the snake with open 
mouth, and nearly severing its head quite close to 
the body. The scene that then ensued beggared 
description. Never shall I forget it—-such a 
floundering and splashing! The surface of the 
water for an instant seemed literally covered 
with perpendicular tails enveloped in foam. So 
great was the commotion that we were compelled 
to retire to a greater distance in order to avoid 
being thoroughly drenched. After the disturbed 
waters had become somewhat calmed, we resumed 
our former position in order to make further 
observations, and found our large bass hero, with 
one end of the snake in its mouth, rapidly making 
away with it, and a smaller, but not less preten¬ 
tious brother, at the other end, endeavouring with 
all his might and main to eat even with him. 
Thus these gamey lads continued for some time, 
swimming up and down the stream, like two boys 
running witharope. The distance between them, 
however, rapidly diminished. This had continued 
for some time, when we saw emerging from undei' 
a log at the edge of the banks one of my pike 
{Esox Indus). At first he came slowly but 
steadily, when he made a rapid dart, with open 
mouth, at my smaller bass, and, at a single gulp, 
placed himself outside of it. Then he came face 
to face with our hero. It was an awful moment 
of suspense. For some time our finny gladiators 
remained motionless, eyeing each other, measur¬ 
ing the dimension of each other’s mouth, as it 
were. The crisis at length came. The bass, by 
force of digestion, had made way with his part of 
the snake rope, and making one mighty effort, 
stretching maxillary and dental to their utmost 
capacity, soon enveloped the pike to a point just 
below the operculum. At this point we departed, 
feeling perfectly satisfied that our hero would 
take care of himself.”—From Dr. Henshall’s 
“ Book of the Black Bass.” 
Catching Salmon out of Season in the Isle 
OF Man. —On Saturday, before Messrs. S. Harris, 
H. B. and A. Bruce, sitting in the Petty Session 
Court, a number of cases were brought by the 
Board of Conservators of Salmon and Fresh 
Water Fish, against persons for catching or 
attempting to catch salmon and trout in the 
close season. John Cowin was fined the full 
penalty of £o and costs, or two months’ imprison¬ 
ment, for an offence committed on Dec. 30; and 
for a similar offence committed on Jan. 12, the 
case was continued. 
THE SONG OF THE SALMON 
fisher; ■ ■■ 
Break, storms, on the heathery hills. 
Break on the sodden plain ; 
Steadily pour till the river fills. 
And the floods come down again. 
Curl, river, curl and swirl. 
In a gushing, rushing spate; 
Stir the pools with eddy and whirl. 
Till the hearts of the fish grow great. 
Blow, wind, till the fir trees nod. 
Gather the clouds in the sky; 
Then, oh for the swish of the swinging rod. 
And the flop of the falling fly. 
C. A. G. 
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