214 
TTTE EISHING GAZETTE 
[March 25, 1893 
provincial Botes 
FROM BIRMINGHAM AND DISTRICT. 
To the Editor of the Fishing Gazette. 
The Sparkbrook Angling Society have just brought 
their pike fishing competition to a very successful termi¬ 
nation. The competition was promoted by Mr. C. 
Christian, of the Queen’s Arms Inn, Thomas-street, 
Sparkbrook. This gentleman is a strong supporter of 
the society, and, although the club does not hold its 
meetings at his house, he nevertheless is always ready 
to assist the society and promote its welfare. Upon the 
present occasion the prizes given by this gentleman con¬ 
sisted of a silver lever watch for a first prize, and two 
silver medals for the second and third prizes, the same 
to be awarded to the members taking the heaviest pike 
from Nov. 1 to March 15. The competition up to March 1 
seemed to be a very tame affair, as only a few small fish 
were weighed-in, but during the last fortnight some very 
decent fish were secured, and saved the prizes going to 
some of the members who had weighed in fish of 31b. or 
41b. weight. At the last club meeting the result of the 
competition was made known, and the prizes awarded. 
The first prize was awarded to Mr. W. Davis with a fish 
taken at Alrewas from the Trent, the weight of which 
was Ifijlb. : the second prize was awarded to Mr. T. Pratt 
with a 1 Hlb. fish taken from a private pool at Beoley ; 
Mr. W. Hollings was third with a 91b. fish taken from the 
Avon at Wyre. Mr. Hollings also took another fish of 81b. 
the same day. The fish taken by Mr. Davis was served 
up at a supper, at which the leading members of the 
society were invited. 
Should the weather keep as it is now for the Easter 
holidays, the midland rivers and streams will be well 
patronised, and the fly, worm, and minnow will be in 
use in order to try and lure the sportive trout to the 
creels of the angler. I have heard that the trout-fishing 
prospects on the Severn were never better than what 
they will be this year, the river, in the upper reaches, is 
reported to be well-stocked, and already some very 
decent flsh have been taken in good condition. The 
weir at Lincomb has been fished, but little has as yet 
been done; but the anglers who fish this part of the 
river are in good hopes of having a fine season. Higher 
up the river sport has been better at Arley, Highley, and 
Hampton Lode, the prospects of a good season are very 
bright, some very good trout have been taken at all 
those places, especially at Hampton Lode, off the 
scours, in fact, the higher one gets up the river from 
Stourport, the better the trout fishing gets. 
Some of the butterfly fishermen, who only go out upon 
holiday occasions and when the sun shines on both sides 
of the hedges, will stick to the coarse fishing in spite of 
the close season, and I hear that the Severn Fishery 
Board are issuing permits with the shilling trout licence 
for the holder to fish for coarse fish during the close 
season. This I regret to hear, and I hope that in future 
years the boards will pay a little more attention to the 
coarse fish, and prevent, as far as possible, the river 
being depleted, not only during the close season, but 
during the whole of the seasons. This could be done 
by fixing a standard size of fish to be taken, and, above 
all, prohibit as far as possible coarse fish beind taken 
with the nets. 
I am sorry to inform the readers of the Fishing Gazette 
that our old friend, Mr. W. F. Harris, the secretary 
of the Cardiff Association, and member of the Pro¬ 
vincial Committee, has lately undergone three severe 
operations in London, in order to get rid of the severe 
neuralgic pains from which he has been a great sufferer. 
The operations have greatly relieved him, and he in¬ 
forms me that he has reason to believe that he will not 
have a return of the symptoms again. This, Mr. 
Harris’s friends all hope for. I am pleased to say that 
Mr. Harris has resumed his former duties, and is hard 
at work again in the interests of his Association. 
The Vine Unity, on Tuesday evening last, held their 
annual concert in aid of the prize fund of the Society. 
The concert was well attended, and the society will be 
rewarded to a considerable extent by the large sale of 
the tickets. Some first-class talent put in an appear¬ 
ance, and a very pleasant evening was spent. Mr. 
Spittle presided, and the whole of the committee used 
their best efforts to make the concert a success. 
FROM DERBYSHIRE. 
To the Editor of the Fishing Gazette. 
The season for coarse fish has closed quietly. Its 
final week was marked by very fair conditions, both of 
weather and water, compared with what we had for 
some time previous, but, so far as I have heard, there 
have been no takes of exceptional merit of late. Still, 
a good number of fish have been caught, and quite a 
number of anglers have been out to have a final try. 
In the Weston district some fair pike were taken, but none 
of any great size. The season all over has been a poor 
one. though very far from the worst on record. Barbel 
yielded, on the whole, perhaps the poorest results, 
though some good fish were caught both in the 
main river and in some of the tributaries, notably 
in the Dove from Sudbury down to its junction 
with the Trent. In the Shardlow reach and below it to 
Sawley the season was a poor one, due, to some extent, 
to the general high and fluctuating condition of the 
water. Some very good bags of roach were made, but, 
personally. I can recal no larger bag than one of 381b. 
made in October in the Willington district. The Shard- 
low reach often yielded bags of great excellence so far 
as weight was concerned, but there was a good deal of 
disease, and some considerable mortality amongst the 
fish, especially towards the end of August and the 
beginning of September. The largest roach which 
I saw was one just short of 21b3. It was killed 
in the canal at Weston. A few good bags of 
bream also were made in the same district, and in 
the canal at Willington ; but the season was a 
failure as a whole. The best results in Derbyshire 
amongst chub, so far as the Trent was concerned, were 
made with the fly, especially in the Shardlow reaches 
and about King’s Mills, by fishing from a boat. Wasp 
grub, and later the cockspur, yielded at times fair 
results, but all over fly beat bait. There was no 
marked disease amongst the chub in Trent, but there 
was in some portions of the Dove and Churnet. The 
eel season was up to the average, in some districts above 
it. Dace were fairly good, but the perch—where were 
they t For some reason they are growing very scarce in 
the Trent. 
The pike season cannot, I think, be fairly described as 
anything but an average good one : it certainly was 
not a failure, though no giants have been killed in open 
or quasi-open waters in Derbyshire. The largest fish I 
remember was one of 161b., killed in the Dove at Sud¬ 
bury ; but the Weston reach also yielded some good 
fish. There was certainly no scarcity of fish in any of 
the rivers, and plenty of an ordinary size were killed 
and some giants seen. I hope to have more to say about 
the season generally next week, and to have some¬ 
thing to add as to the general prospects. No salmon 
have as yet, so far as I am aware, been killed in 
the Derbyshire reaches of the Trent, but there are a 
good few, and large fish, too, in the river. Mr. Wood, I 
believe, hooked and lost a fish at King’s Mills recently. 
There were some heavy fish lying lately in the rough 
water below the weir, but the floods, no doubt, enabled 
some of them to run up to Fitchett’s Hole, above 
Willington, which is a favourite lie of the fish before 
ascending the Dove later on in the season. I have de¬ 
signed and had dressed a new pattern of salmon fly, 
which may, perhaps, tempt a Trent salmon to take. I 
intend having it tried. 
With finer climatic conditions than we have for a very 
long time enjoyed in Derbyshire, and with the water in 
excellent ply for angling, it is a pity that the inexorable 
law forbids the coarse fisherman to follow his sport. 
There is no time of the year at which the river is 
quite so pleasant, yet from enjoying alike the beauties 
of spring and the delights of angling, the coarse fisher is 
debarred. Why nature should have made pike, roach, 
et hoc genus omne, in fine condition when, as a rule, no 
one should be by the river, and engaged in spawning 
or preparations when all men should be, is a mystery, 
but the fact remains. Of course there is the other way 
of looking at it; in winter the trout fisher is perforce 
idle, but at the same time, so far as the weather is 
concerned, he has on the whole the best of the deal. 
The past season on the Derbyshire portion of the Trent 
and its tributaries has scarcely reached, and certainly 
not been above, the average. This has. to a very great 
extent, been due to the fluctuating and uncertain state 
of the waters, which have been everything by turns and 
nothing long. In my view this has made the fish rest¬ 
less, and restless fish never do take well. Salmon and 
sea trout, for example, that have been delayed unnatu¬ 
rally in the estuaries never do take quite so well, when 
once a fiood has enabled them to ascend. I have little 
doubt but that the same holds good with regard to all 
fish, and I think I am right in saying that the best 
seasons on the Trent have been those during which the 
weather was, on the whole, settled, neither a too 
great preponderance of rain nor too long periods of 
drought, but just a proper and natural intermixture 
of fine, and wet, and sunshine, and rain. Though at 
times throughout the season good bags of roach were 
secured, yet success was very uncertain and blank, or 
practically blank, days were far too frequent. The best 
bag, which I remember having been made, was secured 
below Willington Bridge. It weighed 381b., which is 
by no means phenomenal considering what has been done 
in the past. There may have been bigger bags, but I 
have not heard of them. The largest roach, so far as I 
am aware, was one of close on 21b., killed, curiously 
enough, in the canal at Weston, near the Old Cliff Inn. 
There was a good d«al of fungus amongst the roach 
towards the end of August and the middle of September, 
especially below Shardlow, hut after the first flood I 
saw no traces of disease, though the water was at no 
time from that date so suitable for observation as 
previously. The chub season on the whole was fairly 
satisfactory, though only Dr. Butler, of Castle Don- 
ington, and to some extent Mr. Wood, at King's Mills, 
did anything jihenomenal in the way of killing large 
bags. The former had some first-rate baskets, all being 
taken with the fly. Indeed, all over fly was the best 
lure, but, unfortunately, the majority of Trent anglers 
know nothing of the mystery ot fly-fishing, and regard 
it with a species of awe. Chub were in good order right 
up to the close, nnd would, at time of writing, afford 
excellent sport could they be angled for. 
The pike season was on the wh Je not a failure, espe¬ 
cially in the Weston reach, where some very good bags 
were made and some fair individual fish killed. The 
largest fish was, I think, one of ILilb.—which is a good 
fish anywhere, though not even approaching the phe¬ 
nomenal. 451b. was about the best bag made by any 
one rod. In view of the fact that the Trent is essentially 
a coarse-fish stream, it is a pity that so many extremely 
small fish are taken ; but there is no imit in most of 
the reaches, and it is to be feared that much harm is 
done by this indiscriminate slaughter of juvenile fish. 
If the Trent were a salmon river in the strict sense of 
the-term, or a trout stream, one would rejoice at the 
slaughter of pike, whether great or smsdl: but, as it is, 
young pike are just as essential to the Trent as young 
salmon, whether parr or smolts, are to a salmon river; 
and as long as this is so, they should be spared and 
protected. Many anglers overlook this important truth. 
If the character of the river changed, then what at 
present is the opposite of a blessing might become one. 
In the Willington and Burton districts the pike season 
was a poor one, while in the Shardlow and Sawley 
roaches it was far from good, though some fair speci¬ 
mens were secured in the Pride of Derby water — that 
portion of the Derwent just above its junction with the 
Trent. In the tributaries some very good pike-fishing 
was obtained, especially in the Dove between Sudbury 
and Tutbnry, and between Monk's Bridge and the junc¬ 
tion of the river with the Trent. The largest pike of the 
season—a fish of 161b. — was killed below Sudbury, 
though a number of other nice fish of from 101b. to 121b. 
were also secured. Barbel fishing was, as a rule, a failure, 
and in some of the best reaches the results were, com¬ 
paratively speaking, miserable. In the Shardlow 
stretch, for example, where there are some admirable 
swims, but few barbel were taken, while above W’illing- 
ton, where there are also some good bits of barbel water, i 
failure was writ large over the efforts of anglers. I 
will, however, defer further remarks upon the general 
results of last season until next week. 
Salmon fishing has now begun in earnest, and I am 
thankful to say that there is a fair quantity of fish in 
the river. Some of these are of a very large size. Per¬ 
sonally, I have as yet seen none, but that is, of course, 
a mere matter of chance in such a river as the Trent, for 
one might see half-a-dozen about King’s Mills in half au 
hour, and yet see none by waiting there half a day or 
traversing a great deal of water. There are fish up, 
however, and on Monday, at King’s Mills, Mr. 'Wood, 
the lessee, secured the first fish of the season, a clean 
ran “■ springer ” of 151b. The fish, I believe, was killed 
on a “ Devon.” He also hooked and lost a larger fish 
last week. Some anglers were out yesterday, but did 
nothing, while to-day two were busy at it just below the 
ferry, but at the time I left them they had seen 
no fish and had had no offers. The first fish of 
the season was killed last year in the Thrumpton 
water on March 22, and this year, as the first was killed I 
on Monday, the 20th, the coincidence is rather striking. 
The water is in excellent order, and the conditions are 
otherwise favourable, though such bright skies as we 
have could hardly be called favourable adjuncts on any 
river save the Trent. If the weather holds as it is, 
some good fish should certainly be taken within the 
week. 
Trout fishing with the fly has not yet properly begun, 
and though we have hard frost at night, yet the days 
are so warm that there is nothing to prevent a good 
“hatcher” out of flies. At the same time, when up 
at the Milton hatchery the other day, I could not help 
being struck by the total absence of life in the ponds 
where the larger and the stock fish are, and the very 
meagre show of flies on the water. I did not see a fish 
rise, though I watched for more than an hour. What 
has been done up to this point has mostly been with the 
bait, but fish or no fish with the fly, the weather is so 
glorious that no intending visitor to Derwent, Wye, or 
Dove should be deterred by the prospect of only 
moderate sport. There will be many compensating 
advantages. The waters are all in excellent order, and 
the trout are in very fair condition for the season of the 
year. 
The annual meeting of the Trent Board of Conserva¬ 
tors will be held at the Midland Hotel, Derby, next 
Tuesday, when the annual report will bo submitted and 
some important business transacted. 
FROM HAMPSHIRE AND DISTRICT. 
To the Editor of the Fishing Gazette, 
Poaching in local waters seems to be wonderfully 
prevalent, but I am glad to see a few of the light- 
fingered snatchers brought to book. At the Winchester 
Sessions on the 18th, James Brown, William Cox, and 
Albert Jeffery, were summoned for attempting to take 
fish otherwise than by angling, from the private waters 
in Pointon’s Meadows, on the 8th instant. Defendants, 
who were all old offenders, were each fined 20s. and 
lls. 6d. costs, or fourteen days. At the Southampton 
Bench, an old offender was summoned under similar 
circumstances. A police constable thought the de¬ 
fendant’s pockets were bulky, and, being known to be 
an old poacher, he was searched, and a large poaching- 
net was found upon him. Fined 10s. and Os. costs. 
Such wholesome punishmentsjwill doubtless much miti¬ 
gate the offence. 
Just before the pike season closed, some large fish 
were taken from the local waters, and the heaviest— 
171b.—was subjected to an “inquest” by the worthy 
civic coroner, who found the “ body ” of .lack Pike 
made a toothsome dish. 
A large otter was recently found floating upon the 
water, dead, in the Test, at Redbridge. Local papers 
seem to regret the occurrence, but they have probably 
not seen the damage these animals are capable of, or 
they would not lament the exterminating of them. I 
have known them to be the anglers’ greatest enemy, and 
am convinced that they do an enormous amount of evil 
to tde trout and other fish. 
A few good salmon have been taken. Mr. Fitzgerald 
has been lucky in bagging two, of 331b. and 18-llb. 
respectively, from the Test below Romsey. The fishing 
belongs to the White Hart Hotel, Ringwood, and has 
yielded many good fish. Mr. Austin and the Hon. H. H. 
Guest have had salmon of 201b. from other waters—the 
Avon. This river at Ringwood is in fine form, and the 
