June 17, 1893] 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
463 
NOT A RED-LETTER DAY. 
By C. W. Gedkey. 
There never was such a short May-fly season 
on the Darenth as we have experienced this 
spring. I have almost lived on the river’s banks 
since the fly first came up on May 13, and yet 
my score has been the smallest on record. The 
fish have been most exasperatingly shy during 
the one week that those big flies rose in anything 
like quantities; but, at the end of a fortnight 
from their first appearance, the large trout 
refused to look at them. Last Monday should 
have been a real red-letter day, for I was fishing 
one of the best stocked and most strictly pre¬ 
served lengths of the river. There was a scorch¬ 
ing hot sun and a north-westerly wind, which 
occasionally brought up thunder clouds, and 
when there is thunder in the air it is hopeless to 
attempt to entice trout to rise to the surface. 
This was the case on the occasion referred to, 
and I worked for six mortal hours as if my life 
depended upon the result, and the total score at 
four o’clock was one solitary trout! Remember 
this was on the choicest water in the Darenth— 
water that teams with big fish. As a matter of 
fact, that only specimen for which I bad laboured 
so hard was caught by the tail! He flirted’ 
at my big May-fly, and tried to knock it 
under water with his tail—a common trick when 
trout are not feeding on surfaee food. I struck 
and hooked the rascal, and a pretty dance he 
led me, bolting into a weed bed, in four foot of 
water, and necessitating my going in and prod¬ 
ding him out with the landing-net handle. He 
was finally netted, however, and paid the penalty 
with his life—a lovely fish of 11b. lOoz. As 1 
have already said, he was the only occupant of 
my basket, but a score or more of wretched little 
quarter-pounders had been taken and returned 
to grow larger. But hope springs eternal in 
the breast of the angler, and so we rested hope¬ 
fully beneath a grand old oak and waited for the 
sun to drop behind the hill. A mother dab- 
chick came from a bed of yellow iris, and recon- 
noitered, then calling to her brood of tiny little 
ones they paddled round her as she found them 
food, regardless of my presence. Presently a 
score of thirty lambs came down, and waded in 
shallow water as they drank. Wood-pigeons too 
came and took their evening bath, but my 
presence was well-known to these wary fellows, 
and they gave me a wide berth. Baby rabbits, 
scarcely larger than balls of grey worsted, began 
to frisk about on a knoll to my right, and a 
corncrake croaked vigorously in the long grass 
on the opposite side of the stream. These fami¬ 
liar evidences of a closing day were all noted, 
as were the rising clouds of wee black gnat 
that hovered on the surface of the stream, 
where lengthening shadows from adjacent trees 
threw their grateful shade. But still the trout 
failed to rise. 
There is an awakening of insect life in the 
foliage of the branches above us; for the oak 
moths are nocturnal in their habits, and they 
only become active as the daylight fades. This 
has been a very prolific season with all the 
Lepidoptera—as our agriculturists know to their 
cost—and the oaks have been literally alive with 
Vanessse and A. iris, besides a host of smaller 
members of the tribe. Soon they will envelope 
the outer branches overhead in a gyrating cloud, 
and, buzzing round their wingless sweethearts, 
flutter out the few hours of perfect existence 
that is allotted to them. Happy moths! A 
shrew mouse came out from an old stump and 
entertained us with her evening toilet; and 
presently another brother of the angle, who had 
toiled long and taken nothing, joined us to 
reproach us with our idleness. But a few 
dimples beneath some alder stumps showed that 
the evening rise had begun, and we started to 
endeavour to retrieve our fallen fortune. But 
the artificial Black Gnat those feeding fish would 
not look at; Red Quill, Ginger Quill, Yellow 
Dun, Alder Fly, and Sedge were equally un¬ 
availing. Was there ever such a lot of perverse 
trout! In a moment of inspiration we mounted 
a Governor, an imitation of the bank-burrowing 
bee, and with this old favourite the long spell of 
bad luck was broken. Within an hour our 
solitary trout in the basket was joined by six 
other victims, and then the rise was over. We 
worked hard notwithstanding, and at the end of 
twelve hours’ hard fishing our total was only 
three and a half brace. And yet the bulk of 
mankind entertain the mistaken notion that fly¬ 
fishing is an idle occxtpation ! 
BOOKS REVIEWED. 
“ The World-Wide Atlas ” is most assuredly 
a wonderful production. There are 112 clearly 
printed and beautifully tinted maps, plans of 
cities, &c.; the flags of all nations, and the time 
of all nations; and a complete index to 56,000 
places named. It is handsomely bound in cloth, 
royal 4to, and may be procured at the extremely 
low price of 7s. 6d. There is an introduction by 
J. Scott Keltie, Assistant Secretary to the Royal 
Geographical Society, London, giving an account 
of geographical discovery and political territorial 
changes in the nineteenth century. It is a 
veritable multnm in parvo. When we say that it 
is printed and published by Messrs. W. and 
A. K. Johnston, of Edinburgh and London, 
further praise is unnecessary, and we heartily 
commend it to our readers. 
The Hook op Holland. — That enterprising 
railway company, the Great Eastern, has recently 
given us bold advertisement. “ The Hook of 
Holland” is now familiar in our mouths as house¬ 
hold words. But what is the “ Hook of Holland ” ? 
We have before us as we write two of Percy 
Lindley’s Guides—one entitled “ Via the Hook 
of Holland,” price one penny; and the other, 
published by authority of the G.E.R., “ The 
Tourist Guide to the Continent,” price sixpence. 
Old travellers who remember the unpleasantness 
orginally experienced and time absorbed in getting 
to tbe Continent will endorse the remarks of the 
Daily Telegraph with regard to these guide 
books: “Worth ten times their price to the 
vacation rambler.” To those who contemplate 
paying a visit to any of the delightful old Dutch 
towns, it may not be out of place to remind them 
that either of the guides enumerated—the six¬ 
penny one for preference, as it contains 168 pp., 
and is full of choice descriptive illustrations— 
will describe how, by the new Hook of Holland 
route, passengers are enabled to reach the 
Hague, Amsterdam, &c., earlier than by any 
other route. The slow and tor' nous journey up 
the river is obviated by the building of a station 
and quay, so that passengers upon leaving the 
new twin steamer, the Chelmsford —a veritable 
floating palace—may proceed without delay to 
their destination. “ Time is money.” The Great 
Eastern Railway have enabled the business man 
or pleasure seeker to save both time and money. 
In conclusion, we heartily recommend our readers 
to secure a copy of “ The Tourist Guide to the 
Continent,” if only for the map and illustrations. 
It is replete with valuable information, and 
may be obtained at 30, Fleet-street, or 61, 
Regent-street, London. 
The Birkrems River. —In our issue of Feb. 11, 
under the heading of “A Successful Salmon 
Ladder,” our correspondent “ R. P.” referred to 
the opening up, by the construction of a pass at 
the Fotlandsfoss, of the Birkremelv, which enters 
salt water at Eckersund, in southern Norway. 
According to the Aftenpost of the 9Dh inst., the 
success which last year was partially accom¬ 
plished, and which our correspondent predicted, 
would seem to be in a fair way of being fulfilled. 
“ Lately,” says our contemporary, “ there has 
been an unusually heavy take of fish at Launes- 
broen (the mouth of the Birkrcm river at Ecker¬ 
sund). The river, which has been protected for 
about five years, now shows a great increase in 
the quantity of salmon, the results of the protec¬ 
tion being remarkable. Last year the average 
weight of the salmon was from 12 to 18 marks 
(61b. to 91b.); this year, up till now, they have 
averaged 36 to 48 marks. The salmon ladder at 
Fotlandsfoss, which gives the fisb access to three 
or four miles (twenty-one or twenty-eight Eng¬ 
lish) of the upper river, is thoroughly efficient, 
and there is every probability that the river will 
become one of our most valuable salmon streams.” 
“Pise Marry Scholar. But I would not be there, nor 
indeed from under this tree ; for look how it begins to 
rain, and by the clouds (if I mistake not) we shall pre¬ 
sently have a smoaking showre, and therefore sit close ; 
this sycamore tree will shelter us.” 
I RASHLY ventured on beading this column 
with a wet-weather quotation from the “ Com¬ 
plete Angler” in hopes, founded on a falling 
weather-glass, that it will be appropriate by the 
time the paper is published. It is difficult to 
talk about anything else except this weather, 
which, though delightful enough for picnic 
parties and generally for people of independent 
means who have nothing to do but to enjoy 
themselves (provided they are not anglers), is 
simply killing to the workers confined in stuffy 
offices and workshops, and is bringing ruin on 
hundreds of the agricultural classes. At last the 
Thames is beginning to show the effects of what 
will probably be termed the great drought of 
the nineteenth century. The rainfall in the 
watershed has been infinitesimal for several 
months, but for a long time, thanks to the abun¬ 
dant rise of water at the spring heads, the river 
has been, if anything, above its usual level for 
the time of year. Now a change has come. It has 
fallen below summer level, mills are working half 
time, and nothing but the most excessive rainfall 
will set matters right. 
Unless we have the excessive rainfall, I am 
afraid the. bank angler will not do very much 
for the present, because the fish lie out in the 
streams, and there are very few bank-swims, 
except just below weirs, where the fish will be 
found. The London club angler, whose chief 
delight is in his roach pole and Lea or Thames 
method of fishing with a tight line, would in 
such seasons as this, catch many more fish if he 
were to persistently ledger the weir pools with 
paste. In the middle of hot sunny days in June 
and July, I have seen really fine baskets of fish 
captured by this method. Of course running 
tackle is required, and the ledger should consist 
of a not too light bullet with a hook a yard below 
it. Three or four inches above the hook, which 
should be a large one, is a swan shot fastened 
tightly on the line. The tackle need not be very 
fine as it lies on the bottom and can hardly be 
seen by the fish, but it is as well to stain the gut 
brown, which renders it almost indistinguishable 
on the gravel. A stiff bread and bran paste has 
to be made up, and a ball as large as a hen’s egg 
is squeezed over the shot. A piece very nearly 
as large as a marble is placed on the hook, care 
being taken that the hook is so baited that when 
the fish is struck, the point will come through 
the paste. If you place an eighth of an inch of 
very stiff paste over the hook point, it very 
naturally acts as a guard. The baited hook and 
its belongings are let down quietly into the eddy 
at the side of some lasher, and the angler of 
course fishes by feel. No ground-bait is thrown 
in, and if it were it would do more harm than 
good, for it would be quickly swept away by the 
eddies and heavy currents of the weir pool. 
The ground-bait is the large ball of paste which 
is on the line. The fish come and dig their 
noses into this, until one larger than the rest 
seeing in the piece which covers the hook a lump 
of food worthy of his size seizes it, and is or is 
not caught as the case may be. 
A suB-coMiiiTTEE of the Upper Thames Associ¬ 
ation, appointed to consider the new draft of the 
Thames Fishery Bye-laws, and presided over by 
Mr. Darrell Blunt, of Mapledurham, have recom¬ 
mended the conservators to allow only gudgeon 
to be used for baiting eel-traps, and to allow the 
destruction of pike of any size in weir pools 
which, in the opinion of the conservators, have 
become trout preserves by the introduction of 
trout, artificially reared or otherwise, of not less 
than two years of age. It was also decided to 
draw the attention of the.conservators to the con¬ 
tinuance of the power to use hoop and drag nets, 
and to inquire whether the time had not arrived 
for prohibiting them, in view of the desirability 
of the Thames fisheries being maintained for 
