Januaky 7, 1803] 
Tiiv. prsiiiisci GAzi7rrE 
13 
shipmate reeled in the phantom, I began to 
negotiate the impatient stranger. The tactics of 
this fish were peculiar; he darted off, keeping 
but a few feet under water, taking off yards of 
line, and giving Pat, already wearied with a 
sharp day’s work, a long chase. We must have 
gone over acres of the lake before the fish finally 
bored down, and was somewhat beneath the point 
of my rod. Darkness had fallen; I could only 
follow' the line, as it hissed too and fro, by the 
phosphorescent light. “ Can you see to gaff, 
Pat,” I asked hurriedly. “If I had to fale 
the w’ay to my mouth, your honour, I’d take 
him.” My boy’s confidence in himself was 
rightly placed. There came a splashing, a 
glitter, a turmoil, a silvery mass rolled towards 
the boat, and Pat had the “ frox ” without more 
ado over the gunwale. The trout, which only 
weighed 81b., had been hooked outside the gills. 
Down in the depths in the gloaming, he had 
come too near in his inspection of the twisting 
enigma, a triangle had struck him ; he became 
an inmate of my larder. 
Another lake that 1 remember in Leitrim 
really contained good trout. 1 was staying with 
a friend who pocsessed a very convenient acces- 
soiy to a fisherman's wants—a boat, and a good 
boat, that fitted on a four wheeled carriage or 
bogie, and could be mounted or dismounted at 
will with ease. Off we w'ent one morning, bump¬ 
ing and rolling along the boreens, until we came 
into a most desolate bit of the country, all waste 
land and bog, and in the midst of it rippled the 
small lough we sought, and whose waters we had 
been told contained “ iligant throuts.” Luckily 
a stone causeway led through the swamps to our 
goal, and we were quickly at the water’s side and 
launched our skiff. Then, having engaged the 
cottager who had charge of the lake, and could 
row, we pushed off. For once we had not been 
deceived in the capabilities of our venture. The 
lough, though only about two miles long, and one 
broad, was shallow, full of reefs, and though sur¬ 
rounded by marshes, was as clear as crystal. The 
fish were good, nearly always half-a-pound, some¬ 
times well over ; and there being a fine ripple on 
from the stiff breeze, and alternate cloud and 
sunshine, we did well. The Mayfly season was 
long over, and the trout leapt at anything, 
though they seemed to prefer a lied Palmer. 
Floating on before the wind, we enjoj’ed excel¬ 
lent sport, heaps of beauties tilled our creels, 
but when wo had reached the end of the 
lake, an ominous change came over the weather. 
Erin is celebrated for her varying clime; 
it commenced to blow a gale, and poured 
in torrents; but, nothing daunted, we turned 
to row up against the storm with a view 
to fishing agaiir. The native and I pulled on 
with all our might, my friend sitting in the stern, 
with his head well bent down, resisting the 
driving blast. Suddenly, without warning, we ran 
on a reef, the bows shot up high and dry, firmly 
fixed on the rock, and the water poured through 
the bulging planks. Here was a mess. The shore 
was equi-distant, more than a (luarter of a mile 
on either hand. Paddy nearly wept, loudly 
declaring he could not swim, while the boat 
remained immovable, the water increasing on us 
every moment. Some effort was necessary. I 
divested myself of my lower garments and 
stepped out upon the reef, How sharp the rocks 
were, and how heavy the skiff, but with the help 
of my friends I lifted her off, and we hurried 
“ hard all ” to land. We grounded not a moment 
too soon. Creels, clothing, lunch, all were 
swamped, nothing “ was droy,” as our henchman 
remarked, “ save the whisky.” Determined not 
to lose our fishing, my comrade despatched 
I’addy to a house for some old cask hoops, nails, 
and a hammer, and, explaining how the repairs 
were to be effected, we strode off to the stream 
that ran out of the lough. How different was 
the brook, if brook it could be called, from the 
bright and beautiful lake as we had seen it in the 
morning. The water oozed between the high 
banks turbid and muddy, the colour of porter, 
and not a stone or rapid to be seen. Standing 
at least six feet above the stream we commenced 
casting with our dai'kest flies. Trout came, but 
such trout, fish all head and no body—veritable 
leeches with fishes’ heads ; and as for colour, one 
might have squeezed ink from them. Disgusted, 
wc retarned to our shipwright. Ho had made a 
“ nate job,” as he said, nailing the thin strips of 
iron over the fractured planks, and we re-embarked. 
Disappointment met us. Though the sun shone 
out brightly now, and nature seemed to have 
recovered her equanimity, the fish were “put 
down,” not a trout rose to our most fascinating 
selections, and, giving it up as no use, we jotted 
home. 
{To he continued.) 
“ This pleafant curiuj'ilie of Fifli and Fifhiiuj has been 
thoufiht n'orthy the pens and practices ofdivei-s in other 
Nations, which have been reputed men of r/reat Learning 
and Wifdome.” Izaak Walton. 
Therk is, not unnaturally, a considerable stir, 
among Thames anglers concerning the draft of 
the proposed bye-laws, which has not, so far as I 
can hear, been well received in any quarter. One 
who is perhaps the greatest living authority on 
Thames Fishery Preservation, wrote me this week 
that he was “ more than amazedhe was 
“ astonished and disgusted.” I have no doubt 
that the Conservators as a body mean well, and 
have partly erred through ignorance of Thames 
fishery matters, but they most certainly are to 
blame for lending a ready oar to men who ask for 
increased netting privileges, and a restriction on 
fish culture by the public, and for not giving due 
consideration to the very men who are best able 
to advise them on the subject of Thames Fishery 
Preservation, and whose advice they asked but 
have not taken. 
Conservators of the Thames and other rivers 
surely ought t® know, without it being brought 
to their notice by a humble person like myself, 
that the object of fishery bye-laws is to increase, 
or at any rate maintain, a proper stock of 
fish. What were these worthy people of Tower 
Hill thinking of when they for one instant 
listened to the suggestion that the owners of 
private fisheries should use nets of a smaller 
mesh than is at present legal ; and that anyone 
claiming a private fishery should be allowed to 
net without first obtaining the licence to do so, 
which is now necessary ? For years no netting 
has taken place in the Thames above Staines, if 
we except a little done by the watermen, and 
some netting of flooded meadows by certain 
riparian owners. If there are persons who w'ish 
to have increased netting facilities, and to be 
allowed to use nets of a smaller mesh than are 
now legal, it is perfectly obvious that there are 
persons who intend to use nets in the river, and 
that on no small scale. That point ought to be 
understood and remembered. I repeat there are 
persons who want to use nets in the Thames on 
a considerable scale. One can come to no other 
conclusion. 
Is it, I would ask, either in the interest.s of the 
public or of the owners of private fisheries them¬ 
selves, that this netting should be allowed If 
the Thames fisheries have any value at all, it is in 
respect of the sport they afford to anglers. The 
food fish ai'e not sufficiently numerous to make 
netting pay, except it were carried on by very poor 
persons, who might sell the fish they caught by 
their own labour, to cottagers for small sums. It 
would not pay the riparian owners to net. But if 
the riparian owners commence to net, either for the 
fun of the thing, or out of pure cussedness, or with 
the idea of making money oiat of it, or for any other 
reason, there are a number of persons (small men 
who own a coal wharf, or a small pnb., or a mill, or 
any other river frontage) who will claim as 
riparian owners the right to put a net in the river 
opposite their frontages. The riparian owners 
who have asked for these netting privileges, 
probably have not considered the extent to which 
netting might be carried on if their application 
was acceded to, and would be the first to raise 
up their hands against any of the said small 
men joutting in nets. Yet who is to stop themp 
Who will commence expensive legal proceedings, 
the end of which would be involved in the 
greatest uncertainty, to stop Mr. Jones of 
Thames-side Mill, or Mr. Kobinson of the Weir- 
head Inn, from netting in front of their little 
pfoperlic's P I hope my dear friends the o’onser- 
vators will think the matter well out before 
yielding to suggestions which have been made 
them by persons who are, with all respect, 
ridiculously sensitive of any restraint on their 
rights of property. Yet these same men uphold 
game laws, which prohibit them from shooting 
on their own land for a portion of the year. They 
very ])roperly love those infringements on their 
rights, let them have the good sense to see that 
the fishery bye-laws, which have hitherto, during 
many years prevented netting in the waters of 
the upper Thames, are as much to their interests 
as the game laws which stop them and their 
neighbours from shooting out of season. Fishing 
preservation benefits owners of fisheries even 
more than it does the public. 
One more word about netting. 1 have some¬ 
times heard persons remark—and twice out of 
the three occasions on which the remark was 
made the remarkers were old poachers—that 
netting is good for a river; that there arc more 
fish in it when netting is carried on than when 
there is no netting. A many years ago, when 
netting was more common, fish were doubtless 
more plentiful; that is true enough, but it is not 
easy to see how, if there are fifty thousand fish 
in a river and you net out ten thousand, the 
remaining forty thousand exceed the fifty 
thousand in number. Possibly the theory is 
that in rivers like the Thames, by netting out 
the jack and large trout, chub and perch, you 
take out what may be termed fish destroyers, and 
the fish which remain will increase and multiply 
in consequence. It is doubtless good to get jack 
out of a trout stream, but we know, on sound 
evidence, that rivers, such as the Thames, Duse, 
Trent, Kennet, Severn, &c., may all tsem with 
voracious fish and yet swarm with roach and 
other fish. Take the Hampshire Avon, for 
instance; that used to be about the best jack 
river in England, and at the same time there 
was no river like iu for roach. Jack swarmed 
and yet roach were large and plenuful. Take 
the Ouse, which flows by Huntingdon and St. 
Ives. That used to be, w'hen I knew it well, a 
river second only to the Avon for pike and perch. 
I have more than once had a dozen good pike 
out of it in a day’s fishing and some splendid 
bags of perch. Yet that river, though so full of 
pike, simply stinks of roach and bream. 1 and 
a friend had twenty-four dozen good roach one 
wet day from one swim, and not twenty yards 
away from that swim, on another occasion, I 
lauded eleven jack without moving my boat. 
Does that not look as if roach and jack can live 
together and thrive in one and the same stream. 
If further evidence wei’e wanted I could give 
many similar instances to prove the truth of my 
contention that in a stream suitable for coarse fish, 
coarse fish of all kinds will thrive and multiply 
even though certain species feed on others. 
Why then have the fish decreased in the 
Thames ? The reasons are, in my opinion, first, 
the steam trattic, which has the effect of ruining 
fisheries, both in salt water and fresh. ’ I have 
often read of inlets of the sea which once teemed 
with fish, but are now deserted since the steamers 
began to ply in them. With the increase of 
steam launches fish have decreased in the Thames. 
Anglers themselves have caused fish to decrease. 
They ai’e so clever, they make such big bags, 
there are so many of them nowadays, that in some 
cases the natural resources of rivers are not equal 
to the strain put upon them. Perch owe their 
decrease principally to the swans. The violent 
winter floods which tear down the river, thanks 
to the improved drainage of land, and the new 
weirs, may also have something to do with it; I 
think so, but am not certain. But as to the steam 
traffic, there is no doubt, that that in particular 
is the great cause of the decrease of fish. Fish 
shed their eggs, and down comes tug or launch 
with great wash and wave, and away the eggs are 
swept, to be eaten up by minnows and stickle¬ 
backs. (Jne could write columns on this subject, 
but let it be hoped I have said enough to prove 
that at a time when predatory fish are scarce in 
the Thames, the making of them still scarcer by 
netting would not improve matters. Be it noted 
that at the time fishing generally was better in 
the Thames, thei’e were more pike and iierch than 
there ai'e now.— Temi’ear. 
