58 
THE EISHING GAZETTE 
[January 28, 1893 
asking rather too much to attempt that feat. It 
took Master Jaeksome little time to realise the 
fact that his liberty and valuable life were in 
danger, but when this was really brought hoine 
to him by a liberal and steady application of the 
butt, he announced his disgust by one of the 
largest and most savage runs I ever saw made by 
one of his kind; in fact, had it not been that 1 
had an exceptional amount of line on ray reel, 
close on 150 yards, he naust have done me. 
Before I managed to turn him he had, to judge 
from the emaciated condition of my winch, quite 
120 yards out, and he fought every one of these 
as I endeavoured to recover them. After an 
excursion into the lake, the fish made a detei mined 
effort to return to his ancient home among the 
weeds in the little bay where I had hooked him, 
and which, had he been wise, he would never have 
left; but the risks attending such a proceeding 
by so powerful an enemy were top great, by 
holding on all I knew, I stopped him. After 1 
had played him quite three-quarters of an hour, 
the pike began to grow more deliberate in his 
movements, and to show symptoms of exhaustion, 
but, although he came in pretty close now and 
then, he had still too much “go” left in 
him to attempt any tricks. I would not, 
therefore permit the excited old Lapp to 
approach with the gaff until a very easy chance 
offered some ten minutes later. I need not have 
been at all nervous as to the result, for, approach¬ 
ing the water as cunningly as a fox, Peter quietly 
extended the long gaff over the doomed fish, and, 
with one single motion, drew out a splendid jack, 
which, after being knocked on the head and 
placed on the steelyard, proved an honest 02 - 
pounder in capital condition. _ 
There was a fair amount of whisky left in my 
flask, which we demolished to the memory of the 
deceased ; and then, the day being far advanced, 
we returned to camp in triumph with our prize. 
That night the wolves were very noisy, and 
next morning we hunted them up in their glen, 
but, as I have already said, with no success; in 
the' afternoon, however, I took it out of the 
grayling, which were well on the feed, and of 
which 1 made another heavy basket. The follow¬ 
ing day I devoted entirely to the pike in the loch, 
and had very fair sport, but I did not even see a 
big one move, and my largest fish did not exceed 
lOlb. Provisions, especially whisky, running 
short, I determined to retire, and, next day, after 
a long and fatiguing march across the fjelds, we 
arrived back at our different destinations—Peter 
among his reindeer, and we at our temporary 
abode in the farmhouse. 
Later on we spent some little time by the shores 
of the great inland lake, of which the stream re¬ 
ferred to above was a tributary; but we vvere 
disappointed, the place was altogether too 
and in consequence not at all adapted for rod 
fishing. In this lake and its surrounding waters 
there were plenty of fish—trout, grayling, char, 
pike, perch, &c.; but large specimens of any of 
these appeared to be, as far as we could make 
out, decidedly rare, which seemed at first sight 
somewhat extraordinary, considering the vast 
extent of the various waters. But, on further 
investigation, it proved that the inhabitants of 
the district could use almost any contrivance 
they pleased for the capture of the fish—nets, set 
lines, trimmers, otters, &c .; it was therefore not 
to be wondered at that they seldom attained a 
great size. Of course, we heard of monsters that 
had been taken in days gone by—pike of 701b. 
and 801b., huge trout, and so on ; but these takes 
invariably belonged to the dim and distant past, 
and would not bear close investigation. Besides 
the various kinds of nets, one of the most destruc¬ 
tive methods employed was immensely long set 
lines. These were armed with many hundreds of 
hooks, and, extending as they did over a vast 
extent of water, did great damage among the 
finny inhabitants. Trimmers, too, were in very 
general use, and doubtless did no small amount 
of damage among the pike and perch; while the 
peasants devoted much of their spare time to 
trailing quaint-looking and gigantic spinning 
baits behind their boats. In these parts the 
birds of prey were numerous, and on one occa¬ 
sion we witnessed the capture of a basking pike 
by an eagle. The bird did not have things all 
its own way at first, for the fish was a good size; 
but at last he was borne off by the enemy in 
triumph. | 
In connection with this incident, it may not be 
improper to recall what. Lloyd, in his Iield 
Sports of the North of Europe,” says: Now 
that I am speaking of pike, I may observe that 
eagles, which were rather numerous hereabout, 
were not unfrequently seen to pounce upon those 
fish whilst basking near to the surface. It was 
said, however, that when the pike was very large, 
he had been known to carry the eagle under the 
water, when, from the latter being unable to 
disengage his talons, he was, of course, drowned. 
Indeed, Dr. Iffellerberg, a medical gentleman 
attached to the Uddeholm establishment when i 
first visited M’^ermeland, vouched for this being 
the fact, he himself having once seen an enormous 
pike, with an ea^le fastened to his back, lying 
dead on a piece of ground which had been over¬ 
flown, but from which the water had then 
retreated. . i j. r, 
“ Captain Neurenius also informed me that he 
himself was also an eye-witness to a similar 
occurrence. This was on the Gotha Itiver, and at 
no great distance from Wenersberg. In this 
instance, when the eagle first seized the pike he 
was enabled to lift him a short distance into the 
air, but the weight of the fish, together with its 
struggles, soon carried them back again into the 
wate^r” under which, for awhile, they both dis¬ 
appeared. Presently, however, the eagle again 
came to the surface, uttering, at the same time, 
the most piercing cries, and making, apparently, 
every endeavour to extricate his talons; but 
all was in vain, and, after a great deal of 
struggling, he was finally carried under water. 
Captain Neurenius said, moreover, that P'ke 
were occasionally taken alive with 
legs and talons of the eagle attached to 
their backs, the bodies of the birds having 
previously rotted off. This, if true, is a curious 
circumstance; for one would naturally Bave 
supposed that, with such a knapsack, the fash 
would have been unable to procure his food, and 
that he consequently must soon have perished. 
That there must be exceptionally heavy fish in 
these extensive sheets of water there can be 
little doubt, but the odds against capturing one 
with the rod and line are too great, and the game 
is certainly not worth the candle. 
Although the actual sport wo obtained upon 
the big lake was very indifferent as compared 
with what we had enjoyed on the smaller sheets 
of water and their tributaries, we left its shores 
and its hospitable and kindly people with sincere 
regret, and with the hope that ere long we would 
repeat our pleasant visit. 
(Concluded.) 
THE MONSTER TROUT. 
(Ai'Aivov a’lXivov dwe rh S'fS uikcito.) 
Sing woe! for the monster trout. 
But let the good prevail; 
Sing woe !—but pray don’t shout— 
For the fate of the fish that I tell you about. 
And the troiitlets giddy and frail. 
The big trout lived at the tail of a race. 
In a pool with eddies slow. 
And of food he hardly left a trace 
For the troutlets that stayed in a shallow place 
On a stickle down below. 
The rod was supple, the cast was thin. 
And lightly fell the fly; 
And the trout came up with a silly grin, 
Saying, “ Here is a stranger. I’ll take him in . 
AVith a wink of his glassy eye. 
Click ! Splash ! He wriggled and swore ! 
But he wriggled and swore in vain; 
They drew him in to a shelving shore. 
And netted him out, and never more 
Will he make bad jokes again. 
Did the troutlets weep till their eyes were red. 
Or make any kind of fuss ? 
I am sorry to say they giggled instead. 
And remarked to each other, “Now daddy is dead 
There will be more flies for us.” 
So they gobble and guzzle, a gluttonous throng. 
In the pool at the mill-race tail; 
But I say that they shall not stay there long. 
Sing woe 1 for a tale of wrong. 
But let the good prevail. C. A. G. 
TOaltoniana 
The Thames has been a filthy dirty-green 
colour lately, and fishing has been out of the 
question. Things should, however, be improving 
about Saturday. The conservators are now con¬ 
sidering the bye-law suggestions, criticisms, and 
expostulations. With one solitary exception, 
those bye-laws have been condemned by the 
Press, and that exception was a leader in a sport¬ 
ing contemporary which appeared last week. As 
it contained the statement that every Upper 
Thames fishery was private, and that the bye¬ 
laws were the best the conservators could make 
under their existing powers, it must be assumed 
that the article was inspired by some interested 
persons, such as the R.O. Association. It may 
appear paradoxical, but it is a fact, that^the only 
considerable portion of the Thames in which 
private fisheries may with certainty be said to 
exist, is the portion between Teddington and 
Staines. The fisheries in that part of the Thame.s 
are the private property of the Corporation of 
London. With regard to the fisheries above 
Staines, we can only say with certainty that they 
are private so far as their owners have proved 
them to be private. That is to s.ay, in two cases 
—at Majile Durham and at Maidenhead. 
The judgments in the two actions which were 
tried in coiWction with those fisheries, certainly 
went to show' that the public had not in strict 
law, rights of fishery in the upper Thames, either 
by long user, or on account of the oft-quoted 
clause in Magna Charta. But it has never been 
stated that the whole of the upper Thames is in the 
hands of private persons, so far as the fisheries 
are concerned. It was, on the other hand, most 
clearly laid dow'ii by the Court of Appeal, in the 
Maple Durham case, that even where a man had 
a good documentary title, and was also owner of 
the banks, his title could not be proved to the 
satisfaction of the Court, unless he could show 
that he had used and enjoyed the fishery as by 
leasing it, or netting it, or excluding the public; 
in other words, show that he was in possession of 
it. Sir Ford North, again, was most careful to 
say in his most lucid and exhaustive judgment in 
the Maidenhead case, that there might very well 
be portions of the upper Thames to which no title 
could be made out—which were not in private 
hands. I have said this before, and may say it 
again, for the point is one which it is most im¬ 
portant the Thames angling public should lay 
hold of. ___ 
In the article I have alluded to, there was 
much talk of the netting “ riy/ifs” of owners of 
fisheries. Now it is absolute nonsense to talk of 
any one having netting rights in the Thames. 
Parliament gave the conservators power to 
prohibit all netting, and in the Act there were 
no exemptions made in favour of owners of 
private fisheries. The conservators, however, 
have permitted certain persons to use certain 
nets, and they now propose to extend those 
privileges. It is very doubtful, looking at their 
statutory powers, whether the conservators ever 
had the power to allow certain persons to use 
nets, and I believe, if sufficient pressure were 
brought upon them, the netting clause would be 
withdrawn altogether. That would bo the best 
solution of the difficulty. Remember there are 
no netting rights in the Upper Thames, only 
netting privileges, and no advantage has been 
taken of those privileges for many years. 
It should be understood that before the draft 
of the bye-laws becomes law it has to be published 
in one or two newspapers. After such publica¬ 
tion the conservators are bound by Act of Parlia¬ 
ment to consider any representations which may 
be made to them on the subject, so that the draft 
may be again amended. If it is altered, in 
consequence of such representations or otherwise, 
it has to be again published in the papers, and a 
month must elapse between the time of such pub¬ 
lication and the laying of the draft before the 
judicial committee of the Privy Council. 
Templak. 
