January 28, 1893] 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
53 
From the Brora I heard last week : “ Big spate 
here to-day; all the ice gone oif the Brora and 
Blackwater, but Loch Brora not yet broken. 
A'ery stormy weather in this district for some 
time past.” The latest is: “The loch is now 
clear ; fine strong waters running and fish ascend¬ 
ing. Matters at last look well tor the opening; 
only to insure a success we must have very little 
frost for at least three weeks to come.” 
They are not the “boys”—the sporting lads 
and dalesmen in and about Canonbie and the 
muckle toon o’ the Langholm—to swallow the 
leek without knowing why. They are “ sporters” 
with a grievance—a decided, palpable grievance— 
for which they seek redress in, as they put it, “ a 
quiet, business-like manner.” Already they have 
met to consider the great “ hardship ” which will 
be inflicted on them by reason of the rules lately 
adopted by the Esk and Liddle Fisheries Asso¬ 
ciation to put down unfair fishing. Thev 
mustered to the numbers of a “bumper meeting,” 
and, after discussion, resolved on a petition 
“ praying for a return to the old rules.” These 
must be conceded, and that speedily, otherwise 
may there not be a big racket, rumpus, and 
regular fierce set-to to wrest them back P The 
trout in the Esk and Liddle are certainly not of 
large size, if the majority of them are. as one 
speaker declared, “ under six inches in length.” 
Few' anglers I think wonld care to go far for such 
troutlings. _ 
The angling on Tay and Loch Tay is swinging 
along; elsewhere in Scotland scarcely a thing 
has been done. “ Taysider ” writes : “ A good 
f[uantity of fish being got all over the Tay ; and 
Loch Tay doing middling well. Four as yet is 
the best kill by one rod in a day; and up to 
Tuesday the heaviest weights were 351b., 331b., 
321b., and 301b. The most deadly lures to this 
time have been Blue and Gold Phantoms; and 
of flies. Smith, Nicolson, and Tay Black Dog. 
The river is in fairly good order, but rose a good 
deal on Monday with the mild weather melting 
the snow on the mountains. Whitling are coming 
about, and some have been got in the lower 
reaches.” 
Tay and Loch Tay are showing up well in 
respect of the size of their fish, the average 
weight of which up to date this season is nothing 
short of 201b. 
The recent tremendous ice floods are certain to 
have done a great deal of damage in some places 
to the spawning beds, but details from our corre¬ 
spondents are not yet to hand. 
I.v most of the very early rivers of Scotland, 
wliich are also long-seasoned, it is almost certain 
that both kelts and baggits will be particularly 
numerous among the spring fish this year. The 
immense number of autumn fish even now 
running up to spawn would alone account for 
kelts, but, ill addition, more than half of the 
earlier-run autumn fish that have been months in 
the rivers are still unsjiawued. Where the pairs 
have kept together they are now busy on the redds, 
consequent on the water having got suitable; 
but by the ice floods countless pairs most likely 
have got separated, and from this the presence of 
baggits may arise. We have only previous ob¬ 
servation to support us on this point, but those 
who fished in 1881 will remember the unpre¬ 
cedented number of baggits that spring, after the 
river^ rushed down a terrible crasher of ice at 
the end of a six weeks’ spell of intense frost. 
^[r. Peter Esslemont, along with Mr. Eugene 
Wason, M. P., and some of the Scotch Fishery 
Board officials, baa been holding an inquiry at 
Girvan relative to the seine net fishing. 
Wanted! —A nice handy portable rod-case. 
Something between the box and the cover. The 
bamboo shields arc good in a way, but something 
better is needed. The portable trout rod case 
comes nearer the thing, but we want a strongly 
built compact shield for an 18ft. rod with 
recess for reel, and which can be bundled into a 
luggage van, pitched into a trap, or carried com¬ 
fortably on a fishing excursion. 
Since the break-up of the ice—indeed, following 
hard thereon, there has taken place a considerable 
run of late spawners in Tweed, Annan, and one 
or two others of the South of Scotland rivers. 
Mr. Andrew Murray, of Inverdon, writes, 
with regard to our Deeside correspondent’s Notes 
in this column last week : “ I observe in your 
issue of 21st inst. that ‘ G. M. M.’ informs your 
readers that ‘ the nether Don fishings are let to a 
number of rods at £T 4s. This is a rise of 100 
jier cent, on the rental some years ago.’ The 
truth is, six tickets are let for both salmon and 
sea-trout fishing over the whole water at four 
guineas each, and fourteen tickets for sea trout 
alone at one guinea. This arrangement has been 
in existence for many years. Your correspondent 
further states that ‘ Major Baton, of the Grand- 
holm Don waters, is a liberal patron to his 
poorer brother anglers, and a day’s fishing is no 
sooner asked than granted, provided the request 
has not been repeated too often.’ Major Baton 
died some fifteen years ago. The present pro- 
]irietor lets the water, which is sub-let to seven 
rods at £35 a rod. He retains one rod exclusively 
for himself.” 
“The only othermisstatement, which covers, I 
think, the most of your correspondent’s contri- 
luition, is contained in his remark to the effect 
that it is contemplated to make a tidal lake of 
the estuary of the Ythan so as to afford loch 
fishing all day long. To those ivlio hnoiu, I might 
add that the promoters of that scheme have 
another on hand quite as feasible, namely, to 
divert the spring-tides running through the 
Pentland Firth.” 
A Blackwater Sutherlandshire correspondent 
writes : “ Since I saw you we have had all sorts 
of weather—frost, snow, sleet, fog, rain, and 
spring-like warmth in quick succession. Yester¬ 
day it thawed all day, and a very heavy spate was 
on. Ice all gone ; some tremendous blocks going 
down with about a dozen salmon tails frozen into 
each of them. No doubt they kept Christmas 
with tails up and heads down, and got frozen in. 
IIow does this fit with Jamie Johnston’s, of Mont¬ 
rose, theory ? I quite believe Robertson, whom I 
saw yesterday, that clean fish are moving up, and 
that some could be got even here already. We 
must have the Brora opened in future same time 
as the Helmsdale. I am quite sure it is as early, 
if not earlier.” Mr. Archibald Harper states 
about the Thurso : “ We have an excellent spate 
going on, and fresh fish are running up. I saw 
them to-day going over the shallows.” 
THE WORCESTERSHIRE AVON. 
By H. H. S. 
It is needless, no doubt, for me to mention 
that the Worcestershire Avon and the Warwick¬ 
shire Avon are identical. It is, however, of 
the lower reaches of the classic river that I 
am now writing, and hence the headline of this 
paper. 
The Worcestershire Avon has always seemed to 
me to have had but scanty justice done it by the 
angling press, the injustice, indeed, of neglect 
ratber than of invidious comment, but an injustice 
none the less, and it is with the idea of bringing 
this fine river mere prominently before the 
angling public, that I am once more wielding the 
pen of an unready writer. 
The Avon contains good store of pike, perch, 
chub, roach, dace, bream and eels, and few rivers, 
1 think, can beat it in the production of specimen 
fish. I myself, I must own, have, on the few 
occasions on which I have fished it, met with but 
slight success, but in the face of the really fine 
sport which many Avon anglers constantly 
obtain, I am perfectly willing, nay, I am con¬ 
strained, to ascribe this unhappy result in no 
small measure to my want of skill. 
I have for several years enjoyed the aetjuaint- 
ance of by far t he most successful fisherman who 
ha.s, during the past thirty years, habitually 
fished the river at Evesham, and much of the 
information which I am enabled to impart to the 
readers of the Fishing Gazette, has been obtained 
from this old sportsman. 
PIKE AND PERCH FISHING. 
The pike-fishing from Cleeve Prior, seven miles 
above Evesham, to Tewkesbury, where the Avon 
becomes identified with the Severn, is distinctly 
good, and many fish of 41b. to 81b. and over, are 
constantly taken. In common, sad to say, w'ith 
some other rivers, it, no doubt, suffers heavily 
from the absence of any law with regard to size¬ 
able and unsizeable fish, and I wish I could say 
that the local anglers are good enough sportsmen 
to return all the pike which would rank in the 
Thames as unsizeable. 
It is a melancholy fact, that it is accounted no 
shame to an angler to retain a baby jack of lib.; 
and only last autumn a bank fisherman showed me, 
with actual pride, a poor little sprat of fib. or less, 
which he had ruthlessly slaughtered. Such anglers 
I categorise with Herod of infamous memory ! 
Said S. S. (the fisherman to whom I have 
above referred) to me the other day, “ The 
pike-fishing now is not nearly so good as it was 
twenty to thirty years ago, tor then the river was 
full of good fish, and there were not nearly so 
many fishermen. Then they could afford to take 
the big ’uns and leave the little ’uns, noiv there 
are twice as many anglers, and with the big fish 
much scarcer and more cunning, they take the 
little ’uns and leave the big ’uns ! I am sure that 
there are some very heavy fish left here now, and 
only last year I heard of a pike Ifi^lb., being 
killed by a boy just above Evesham weir.” 
“ What was my best year pike-fishing, Sir ? 
Why, it would be ’65 to ’66, I think, I can’t say 
for certain, but I know that I killed 375 pike that 
season. Don’t you go to put that in the Fishing 
Gazette, Sir, for they’d never believe it 1 They 
were all sizes, from I21b. downwards. I had 
twenty-seven one day, and as many as twenty 
several times.” 
Despite S.’s opinion as to the incredulity 
of my readers, I present this statement to them 
with the assurance, that anyone who knows 
my informant, would not doubt his word for 
a single instant. He has never killed a 
really heavy pike himself, but very heavy pike 
have been killed in the Avon. The best, of which 
I can find any record, was shot in a backwater at 
Norton Corner, three miles above Evesham, and 
weighed 271b. Having lately spawned, it was in 
terribly bad condition. A friend of mine killed 
one over 181b. in Pershore Weir-pit, and really 
good fish are caught every year in the Chadbury 
and Fladbury waters. 
Spinning with a dace is Spragg’s favourite 
method when he first starts pike fishing in Sep¬ 
tember, and he says, with regard to this, “ Never 
use a gudgeon in a river that is full of dace,” 
words the wisdom of which I will leave my 
readers to determine; for my own part, I must 
own to a fancy for the toothsome gudgeon as a 
pike bait. 
“After the colder weather begins,” says my local 
Walton, “ live-bait with a dace, and increase the 
size of your bait as the season grows older. In 
the Avon,” he continued, “ I never found pike 
feed as they do when a spell of cold weather 
suddenly breaks up; then, with a warm south¬ 
west wind and plenty of sun, I have always had 
good sport. I never care about pike-fishing in 
dull weather.” 
The perch in the river are not so numerous as 
they were. Still, good-sized perch are to be 
found by those who know the river, and only last 
September, a friend of mine caught one, 21b. 3oz., 
on pike tackle. He subsequently caught many 
over a pound each, with some minnows which I 
gave him. 
The best perch S. ever caught, weighed 
31b. lloz., and that, curiously enough, was caught 
on a Red Palmer while chub fishing. Aprox^os of 
this, a Pershore fisherman, chub fishing with a 
May-fly last August, hooked and landed a pike 
nearly 41b. As I never saw pike or perch taking 
a natural fly, why in these cases they attacked 
the artificial substitute, is, to my mind, a curious 
problem. I’erhaps some of the readers of the 
Fishing Gazette can explain it from experiences of 
their own. 
Another week I will give some notes on the 
other branches of Avon fishing, and I will 
endeavour to point out the most likely places to 
find the differer t kinds of fi- h. 
