THE EISHING GAZETTE 
325 
May G, 1893] 
CONTENTS. 
N.B.—All rights reserved in articles published in this 
paper, 
Scotch Anglingf.325 
Scotch Notes .326 
Notes and Queries .327 
Death of our old contributor, “ Stormy Petrel ” ... 328 
Yellow Fever . 329 
About Thames Trout. 33O 
The Grannom on the Test, 1893 331 
Waltoniana. ■ _ _ 332 
Correspondence. ' 332 
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SATURDAY, MAY 6th, 1893. 
HAMPSHIRE TROUT. 
A SEPARATE PLATE ENGRAVING OF 
HAMPSHIRE TROUT WILL BE GIVEN 
NEXT WEEK. 
Tins month of May, being one of the best in 
the trout season, we shall have the pleasure of 
giving nest week a charming photo-engraving of 
Hampshire Troi't, after a drawing by A. W. 
Cooper, Eiq., of the Fly-fishers’ Club, who was 
one of the late Francis Francis’s angling friends, 
and illustrated one or two of his works. We 
venture to say that most of our readers will 
think this piciure worth a frame and a place in 
the “ Angler’s Den.” 
Four Hundred Rare Angling Books. —By far 
the largest and most important colltciion of old 
angling books for sale that we have seen for some 
time is described and priced in the catalogue of 
Messrs. Pickering and Chatto, 66, Haymarket, 
London. It includes a perfect copy of the first 
edition of Walton’s “Angler” (price £235), and 
many other most rare and interesting books. 
All collectors should write for a copy of this 
c italogue. 
SCOTCH ANGLING. 
OBSERVATIONS AND HINTS. 
By W. Murdoch. 
The time has now arrived which is reckoned to 
be in an alt round sense the dead early period of 
the year for salmon angling in Scotland. This is 
exemplified this year in a more striking manner 
than it has been for a long time; and to the 
drought, which has been quite phenomenal both 
in its intensity and its severity, it is most largely 
duo. Already all the really early salmon rivers 
have as usual yielded their best sport to the rod. 
The semi-early rivers, most likely, have done 
the same; and now with their usual time for 
angling fairly commenced, the latest order of 
spring rivers are, contrary to experience, doing 
very miserably indeed. It is seen, therefore, 
that angling for salmon cannot be said, in an all 
round sense, to he for the present time of even 
a fairly encouraging nature, to judge from the 
experiences of more recent years. 
As I have indicated, the really good salmon 
angling to be got about this time, is very limited. 
None of the summer rivers have yet begun to 
show sport, owing to the fact that the first of 
the year’s fish native to them, which make up 
what I may call a distinctively summer run, 
have not reached the coast and commenced to 
ascend. But there are such rivers of the later 
spring angling description, such as the Awe, the 
Carron, the Lochy, the Spean, which ought, with 
conditions favourable, to now be giving good 
sport. These, with the addition of the upper 
angling waters of, for example, the Dee, the Spey, 
the Garry, the Helmsdale, the Naver, &c., are 
virtually the fisheries to which for tlie rest of 
the spring season the angling of any real merit 
is restricted, and it must be borne in mind that 
it can only be good on these fisheries in propor¬ 
tion to the number of fish in them, and in 
correspondence with the nature of the weather 
and the condition of the water. 
It strikes me that on former occasions I have 
advanced the statement—it is not a mere 
theory—that in every river, the size of fiy to 
prove the most effective is regulated entirely 
by the temperature. It is true that salmon 
may, and do, take in a small river a larger 
fly than at the same season they may be taking 
most readily in a much larger river, but it is an 
invariable rule with expert and observant 
anglers, to hold that the colder the water the 
larger the fly necessary. We fish on our very 
early rivers in the months of February and 
March with flies of immense size relatively, and 
in order to be most effective with them we 
find as a rule that it is necessary to fish deep. As 
the temperature rises we lessen the size of our 
flies and fish relatively lighter. With the 
warmth which brings up the March Brown the 
temperature of the water rises considerably, 
and anglers of ordinary observation cannot 
fail to have noticed that after the March Brown 
period has gone by, the salmon, when the rivers 
are in normal state and the weather is genial, 
change their taste very suddenly, and are taken 
most readily with flies which are perhaps little 
more than half the size of those which a fortnight, 
or perhaps even but a week before, were the 
deadliest. 
It is utterly useless at this time of the year, 
except perhaps in the evening, to go on fishing 
with large flies and fishing them deep, in the 
expectation that with them, and by the sunk 
method, the sport will prove as good as by 
fishing with small flies, fine tackle, and lightly 
—indeed very near the surface. Farther, it 
may be remarked that the long line, cast at 
the forty-five degrees angle, and the slow 
movement of the flj is not generally, except for 
evening fishing, so deadly a method as the 
shorter line, cast more across stream and brought 
very much more quickly and lightly round to the 
side. Pools and streams also now stand much 
less flogging, and anglers may with advantage 
fish them down much more quickly, as, if fish 
are to come, the chances are that they will 
come at once provided the fly is at all 
suitable. Where “potted” salmon are found 
to be numerous and have gone off the fly with 
which, alone, perhaps they have been fished for 
heretofore, it is generally found that a “ run ” of 
minnow or gudgeon through the pools and streams 
will work wonders, provided the weather is not 
too bright. If bright, and of a frosty nature, with 
the water at the same time very low, prawn comes 
in as perhaps the most deadly bait that can be 
used in most waters. If, however, the pools and 
streams have been plunged and sawed with the 
ininnow, prawn, and gudgeon, to the utter surfeit 
of the fish, it will be found paying to reverse the 
order and tempt subtly with the fly—fly of small 
size, fished lightly as possible. Nothing in my 
experience, hurts a fishery so much as continual 
badgering of the fish with bottom lures, especially 
when the water for a long time has continued low 
and the fish, however plentiful, have not had 
others arriving in the pools to move them or keep 
them company. Vastly longer, indeed, will spore 
under such conditions keep up, provided the fly 
and the fly only—is fished with, as the angler 
can go on reducing the size of the fly as the fish 
get shyer, and by this means continue to have 
sport. In streams it is not necessary to jerk or 
move the fly much, if the size be right, but whether 
in stream or pool, if the fly exceed the size that 
naturally the fish incline, it is well to jerk it; and 
this process of jerking will often prove fatal as a 
change, but a fly that is jerked is too large for 
light fishing, on the principle of casting pretty 
straight and letting it, without moving the rod, 
swing round to the side with the current. The 
same is exemplified in the case of finnock and sea- 
trout fishing about this season. Small files on 
fine gilt prove deadliest when fished light and 
without a movement of the rod, but if creepers 
and dandies, larger than them a good hit, be used, 
they must be jerked by a continual smart jerking 
process, otherwise they will not very readily be 
taken. 
The summer run of sea-trout forward in such 
strength as to give anglers reasonable hopes of 
good sport will not be on anywhere for a month 
or two to come, hence nothing need be said at 
present about sea-trout fishing in river, stream, 
or loch, in Scotland. But there should now, or 
at least very soon, be sea-trout fishing of a capital 
quality had by means of trolling the natural 
sand-eel in kyles and estuaries, such as those at 
Tongue and Durness on the north coast of 
Sutherland, and in some districts of the western 
isles. 
Last week, with the few small pushes of 
freshened water, a regular exodus of the finnock 
or whitling, out of the lower and nether non-tidal 
reaches of a great number of the finest whitling 
rivers of the east coast of Scotland, took place. 
The season, consequently, for such fish in these 
waters has ended, and will not come on again 
until early in autumn. The tideways, however, 
of more than half of the same rivers continue, 
and for some time longer will continue, to give 
good whitling or finnock fishing. Nearly every 
river’s estuary or tideway from the Esks in 
Forfawhire, to the Kyle of Sutherland, may still 
be visited by the expert angler and good results 
secured. The Spey ought this month to give 
its best finnock fishing of the early season on 
its non-tidal reaches from the estuary to ten or 
twelve miles inland; and no liver in Scotland 
that I know of, I may hint, is at this time of the 
year so good for non-tidal finnock fishing. The 
fiunocks which are caught in tideways in May 
are nearly all in the most perfect condition, in 
marked contrast to the greater bulk of those got 
outside the tideways a month or two earlier. 
The early season lime of the year for finnock 
or whitling fishing in rivers wiih various lures 
other than small fly has now gone past; and even 
for bringing sport on the estuaries, creepers, 
dandies, tubes, wrigglers, and Devons, are rarely 
after April found to work so well under ordinary 
conditions as small flies. Where,outside estuaries, 
in farther inland waters such as the lower beats 
of Spey, finnock or whitling are now found to 
take remarkably well, the sport obtained is 
almost entirely with the fly of small size, and 
patterns such as I indicated last week. 
For the early lochs of Scotland, May is on 
the whole as good a month as any, and daring 
it the trout are in as good condition, as free 
risers, and as gamesome as at any time The 
finest trouting on lochs in the northern High¬ 
lands dues not, however, in the earliest localitie.s, 
prove in every way satisfying till later over, 
being at its height in none before the end of 
May, and in iilany not before the middle of 
