January 28, 1893] 
THE FISHING GAZETTE 
EECOLLECTIONS OF FISHING IN 
IRELAND. 
{Continued from page 13.) 
By L. S. G. 
57 
From the same boat once I had an excellent 
day s pike fishing. It was late in October, and 
my friend and I having travelled a good distance 
in our oscillating conveyance, and the day being 
cold and blustering, we were not sorry when we 
sighted our lake. There it lay, a dull lead colour, 
surrounded as usual with bog, forming an oblong 
some three or four miles in length, and varying 
much in breadth. On approaching we saw the 
whole stretch of the little sea was deeply bordered 
with high, but now withered, reeds, following 
every bend of the shore, and thus forming coves 
and creeks, which we trusted to find the home of 
monster fish. There was a little cockle shell of a 
boat belonging to the lake, which “ the mashter ” 
used when he came duck shooting in hard 
weather; and my companion, having elected to 
trail, while J had a penchant for .spinning, he took 
the keeper and pushed off, while I and a stout 
lad kept to the larger vessel. In an isolated 
country place we had found it difficult to get 
natural bait. It is true the loughs around 
swarmed with perch, but the perch is a poor bait 
lor pike, and we had come provided with all kinds 
oi artificial lures. As the water was pretty thick 
1 put up a medium-sized gla.ss bait, but lightly 
leaded. It spun beautifully as I tried it from the 
shore, and I then embarked and began castinf^. 
ihere was a good ripple on, and our method of 
proceeding was very simple. The lad kept the 
boat sideways to the wind, the stern towards the 
reeds, and 1 stood up and cast alternately to my 
Iront, then towards the shore, and then to my 
iett. Thus we progressed without leaving an inch 
ot water unfished. I had not made half a dozen 
throws before my bait was struck, and I held a 
fish last. Ihere was a short fight, and we hauled 
our victim into the boat, a good pike, 81b., and in 
splendid condition, fat and glittering green and 
gold. 
A pause, and I hooked another, a smaller pike, 
but equally seasonable in appearance to the last! 
My next fish ran out right from under the reeds! 
making a most tremendous boil as he took, for 
the bait was not spinning deep, and on feeling 
the decate, he made away at once from shore, 
i had quite a decent fight with this pike, who 
appeared to have some object in view, trying to 
bore down, and get to the bottom. In he came 
however, a lO-pounder, and then, peering over 
the side, I detected the little game. A reef of 
rocks jutted out into the lake beneath the scene 
of the combat—my antagonist evidently had 
designs upon the gimp. We now came to an 
opening in the reeds beyond which lay a good 
bay, quite a sheltered, retired nook. The 
water was very shallow at the sides, but a 
deep furrow had been cut in the centre by the 
stream from a beck that entered at the further 
end. I directed the boy, who knew nothing 
apparently about the lough, to back slowly up 
the channel, while I cast right, left, and before 
me. For the first forty yards or so nothing 
came, though I knew instinctively it was a good 
place; then suddenly, as my bait was twisting 
home through the deep water, a mighty wave 
rose up on the shallow to my right, and I saw 
a really good pike charge, turn, and felt a shock 
such as I had not experienced that day before 
I struck desperately, and the ball opened. As 
knows, the pike is not a very combatant 
fish, but my opponent commenced well. He tcok 
to the shallow to my left, slithered along the 
surface, enabling me to see with joy his fair 
proportions, and then, returning to the deep 
canal, shot through the reedy portals out into the 
Jake. Here he travelled into many fathoms, 
^recred round find round while we followed, as 
the seaman follows a harpooned whale, and then 
he threw up the sponge. A broad tail flapped 
on the water, the lad did his duty deftly, and we 
had the grand fish in a twinkling. The scale 
pulled down to 171b. with that fish, and he was of 
aldermanic girth as well as of fine shape and 
appearance—possibly he was the'cock of the walk 
j u fished it again without a run, 
and held his lair there to appropriate the trout 
passing to and fro the brook. I fished on with 
va,ried success down the lake, keeping close to the 
fringe of reeds, and took my wooden spoon in 
the shape of a small jack, who was lightly hooked 
and turned back to grow, there being but few 
trout in the waters. Then the distant boat 
Signalled me to return, and, rowing in, my 
^mrade and I counted our spoils upon the beach. 
He had seven pike, the largest 141b., I had nine 
and my venture in the sheltered cove had enabled 
me to “ take the cake” also in weight. Seeino’ 
that we fished only four hours, for October days 
are short, we did well. 
Once I caught a salmon in a most extraordinary 
hold m an Irish river. The season was well 
advanced, the w'eather had been hot and dry for 
Ireland, and the water was dead low. Late one 
evening the keeper came to me by appointment, 
and we set off on what I considered the hopeless 
quest for a salmon. Down a jiatli by the bank 
we trudged, my companion commenting on the 
various pools as w^e passed, and relating anecdotes 
of gran days ” with the “ gintlemin,” when the 
watber was roight.” Certainly things did not 
look very promising. The stream, never a bio- 
one, was terribly shrunken, all rock, boulden 
shingle, and “clear as gin.” All at once my 
satellite stopped, and. pointing to the river 
whispered confidentially, ” If there’s any place 
ye 11 git a .salmon this noight that’s the spot.” I 
stared. ^ Thirty yards away, surrounded on 
every side by green lawn like tnrf, with not 
a bush or tree near it, lay a circular pool, 
looking as if it had been cut out with the 
spade, instead of being part of a river in a wild 
and rough country. The water ran into this 
pond over an even ledge of rock, resembling a 
i hames weir, and at the lower end poured away 
through an opening that might have been the 
entrance to the sluice of a mill. I could scarcely 
belieye the whole affair was not artificial, but 
such was not the case. “ Now, your honour, take 
this floi said my friend, and produced, loose from 
his pocket, a few straggling feather.s, tied, how- 
eyer, as I found, on an undeniable bit of sinole 
gut, stained brown. As I held the fly in my 
hand, the keeper gave it some unpronounceable 
local name, but my impression is, ic was a rude 
iniuation of what in Ireland is known as the 
Golden Olive on a No. 10 book. “ I’d advise ye’s 
'to cast roight down from the fall,” murmured the 
keeper, when my preparations were completed, 
but you need not pay great attention till your 
fly s in the midst.” In the middle of the pool he 
meant, but the suggestion to give little heed to 
the job in hand was rather amusing. I fished 
the upper portion of the water blank, then my 
companion whispered, “ Look out, your honour ” 
and as the fly touched the centre of the pool, up 
came a salmon. A small one, it is true, but he 
came with a good head and tail rise, and after 
going the round like a horse in a circus, ho 
returned to the place where he was hooked, and 
sank like a stone to the bottom. We quickly 
roused the fish from the sulks, but our quarry’s 
only idea of play was to perambulate his lair 
and leap. He made no attempt to run the 
rapid, and thus working into my hands, in a 
trice he floa'ed exhausted on the water. Then 
came the end of the 91b. fish, and I went home 
happy. 
1 knew a little river in Wicklow where one 
could enjoy good sport for numbers, but not for 
weight, sometimes after rain. It ran throuo-h 
around you, now and then coming in for more 
than halt-pounders. 
Such was fishing in Ireland in the old days. I 
know not, now that Paddy has got so much “ the 
masthery whether he has poached out his broad 
lakes and ghttenng streams, or whether, “con- 
sarned alone with politics, he has left them “as 
they were. It is long since I have “ wit ” a lin o 
m the disthressful counthry.” 
FISHING QUARTERS IN SWEDEN. 
{Continued from page £120.) 
By R. P. 
The forenoon during which I had made my 
first acquaintance with the pike in these part'd 
had been yery still, but soon after one o’clock a 
breeze began to ripple the surface of the loch 
and even penetrated to the little bay, by whose’ 
shores I was consuming tobacco and contem¬ 
plating the scene, which was certainly a suffici¬ 
ently wild one to satisfy the most ardent lover of 
JNature. 
I had arrived at the stag--) of wonderino- why I 
could never .sketeh even a little bit, when”aU my 
Ideas about scenery, sketching, and so forth, wer'e 
dispensed to the winds by a tremendous splash 
.just outside the weeds, not twenty yards away 
Iroin where I lay. O.ving to the position of a 
sniall point which intervened, I did not soo the ' 
fish that caused the commotion, but that ho w-as 
a big one there could be no doubt, and it at once 
became my bounden duty to prove that interest¬ 
ing lact. Unfortunately I had no large artificial 
baits, nor had I brought any of the smaller 
grayling with me, and all my efforts to attempt 
master jack were unavailing. Whether he was 
still engaged in demolishing his last victim, or 
whether ho scorned such inconsiderable mouth-' 
tills as phantom minnows and .spoons, I know 
not; any wniy ho remained obdurate, and, as far 
as putting in any further appearance, might just 
as well have been fifty miles away instead of 
sulking among the weeds as 1 knew ’ ' 
to be. 
1 - , j-u icni mruugu i 
Wild bleak valley, and then suddenly ertered .a 
thick wood, but throughout its course the brook 
teemed with trout. Many a spring day and 
summer evening have I whiled away here, no 
sound audible but the song of the lark, the hum 
ot the bee, or the merry ripple of the water. I 
remember a peculiarity ot the stream in one 
place, where a flat ledge of rock with a deep run 
underneath ran along the bank for some fifty 
yards. Here I would practise of an evening an 
old dodge of the wary angler. Casting with 
only one fly, a white moth as a stretcher, I would 
throw It lightly on the shelf, then Jet it drop cn 
the surface of the current below. It was always 
answered, and perhaps sometime.'’, with a judi¬ 
cious delay or two, I took more fish on that short 
beat than alon^ the whole course of the I’iver. 
Again, when one dived into the copse the fish 
became larger, evidently attracted by the insect 
hie falling from the trees. Wading out, or 
crouching on a rock in mid-stream, \ on could 
pick your fish off the frothy pools and rapids 
O '" — *. 'iiiii Liv./ yj<3. 
As a last resort, I tried him with a whacking 
great juke tly, which, among other attraclioni] 
bo.asffed a pair of magniHceiit glass eyes, but n->, 
neither the lovely green eyes or the splendid 
bunch ot peacock feathers which composed the 
wing had any effect, and he remained unresponsive 
as ever. 
In the meantime the old Lapp had turned up, 
and had been watching my efforts silently and 
lyth evident interest, but when I fetched out the 
above work of art, his admiration found vent in 
words, and when it returned from its unsuccessful 
expedition across the water, old Peter evidently 
thought the pike in that loch did nob know whaii 
was good for them. Determined on drawing my 
friend somehow, I set off for the tent, rather 
more than a mile off, and in a few minutes, by 
the aid of a cast of flies, had supplied myself with 
some nice sized grayling, with which I returned 
to the little bay. There I found Peter awaiting 
me with quite a “pawky” smile on his weather- 
beaten old countenance, and, in reply to my look 
of inquiry, he produced from a leathern wallet a 
couple of live lemmings. Although I had noticed 
a lew of these queer little beasts in the neighbour- 
hood, they had certainly never struck me as a 
bait for jack; but the old min’s notion seemed by 
no rneans a bad one, and I proceeded to act upon 
It without delay. 
Ihe lemming I chose as the largest and most 
lively was certainly a most cantankerous little 
beast, and before I had concealed a couple of 
hooks about his person, he had made his sharp 
little teeth meet several times in my fingers. At 
last, however, he was fixed up, and having been 
deposited gingerly in the water, “ convanient ” to 
where my pike presumably laj’, he went off swim¬ 
ming at a great pace, and apparently enjoying his 
recovered liberty immensely. His voyage, how¬ 
ever, was destined to be a short one, and 
terminated abruptly. Where the minnow, the 
spoon and the gorgeous fly had failed, the 
lemming succeeded : once more the water parted, 
and, with a farewell squeak, the swimmer dis¬ 
appeared between a pair of ravenous jaws. Old 
Peter was delighted with the success of his 
stratagem, and was evidently much surprised that 
I did not haul the fish out neck and crop; but, 
strong though my gear was, it would have been 
