484 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
[June 24, 1893 
generally fall. Skei is situate on the north¬ 
east end of the lake, and the scenery here is very 
grand. Some interesting excursions to glaciers 
and waterfalls are to be had, and Skei has 
attractions for ordinary tourists as well as 
fishermen. The best fishing is to be had in a 
bay of the lake, running to the south, where 
the lake is supplied by the many streams 
descending from the mighty snowfields of the 
Joelsterdalbrm. Last season, during my stay 
at Skei, a trout of 41b. was taken with the fly, but 
I have not heard of larger fish being killed. 
Bennett’s route gives four or five days’ fishing 
at this station. The journey is continued by a 
steamer belonging to the hotel, which passes 
twice a day to Nedre Vasenden, at the far end of 
the lake. Good fishing is to be had here also, 
with exeellent accommodation at the only hotel. 
Several pleasant days may be passed at this place, 
as the scenery is very grand, but as the fishing 
is somewhat inferior to that of Skei, I recom¬ 
mend the sportsman who is pressed for time to 
pass on to Sande, as shown on Bennett’s plan of 
tour. The station-master at Nedre Vasenden 
will have to be asked to provide a carriole on the 
arrival of the steamer, and the journey is con¬ 
tinued through Forde. By leaving Skei at 6 a.m. 
Forde is reached about two o’clock. The road 
throughout passes through grand scenery, and a 
very delightful drive is thus obtained. I recom¬ 
mend a halt for lunch at Sivertsen’s Hotel at 
Forde, which is situated in a lovely valley, and 
at the head of the Send Fjord. A salmon river 
runs past Forde, affording excellent sport (this 
river comes down from the Joelster Vand), but is 
let on a long lease. Trout are to be had in distant 
lakes in the mountains, but I have never halted 
at Forde for fishing purposes. The hotel recom¬ 
mended is kept by a family very popular among 
tourists. Herr Sivertsen speaks no English, 
but he has a son, a young man of polished 
manners, and an excellent English scholar, who 
gives his guests every comfort that Norway can 
supply. The rest of the journey to Sande is 
somewhat fatiguing, especially in hot weather, 
for on leaving Forde the road suddenly rises 
2500 feet, and as walking is absolutely necessary, 
the traveller is glad to find himself at Sande 
about 6 p.m., where he will be well cared for by 
Herr Sivertsen, a brother of Sivertsen, of 
Forde. 
Sivertsen’s Hotel is the only one in Sande, and 
is pleasantly situated at a stone’s throw from a 
broad and fast-running river, which flows from 
the Haukdal valley, fed by the glaciers. This 
river passes over a rocky bed, with but few pools, 
consequently no heavy fish are to be found in it. 
Sande lies in a long valley, which is unusually 
broad and flat, and many charming walks are to 
be had in the neighbourhood. I know of no spot 
that I have visited in Norway more suitable for 
the ordinary tourist’s stay. The river is full of 
small trout, and evenings can be well spent in 
strolling on its banks with a fly rod. 
There is, however, excellent fishing in the lakes 
of Skevdals Vand and Viks Vand, situated four 
and six miles from Sande. The first lake is but 
a small one, and contains many big fish. There 
is only one boat on it, which is kept by Hans 
Skevdalsnaes, a farmer, who has passed many 
years in America, and consequently speaks 
English well. He is a good fisherman, and a 
capital companion. His only fault is that he has 
a large vocabulary of slang, which he is too fond 
of airing. In this case and at Viks Vand, notice 
should be sent to the farmer, intimating the want 
of a boat. Viks Vand is a lake about twenty 
miles long. The best fishing is said to be at 
Viks itself, a hamlet situated on the extreme 
end of the lake. I have not tried this place, as a 
visit to it can only be carried out by a night’s 
rest at a farm-house, where accommodation for 
English travellers is poor, and the experience I 
have had of sleeping in small farm-houses has 
taught me that “ roughing ” is too great to be 
compensated by a little extra good fishing. I 
would advise a fisherman spending a few days 
at Sande to pay his attention to the fishing to be 
had at Skevdals Vand and Horse Vik (Viks 
Vand). At the latter place, Arne Horsevik, a 
worthy old farmer, keeps an excellent boat, and 
I have had many a pleasant day with him. He 
is not an English scholar, but is a man of a most 
retentive memory, and delights in learning words 
and terms connected with fishing, which he 
makes use of in a very comical manner. He 
is quite at home in English society, and in¬ 
variably finishes the day by an invitation 
to the fishermen to spend the evening 
with him, mentioning a store of “ brandy-vin ” 
as an inducement for a visit. A few days spent 
at Sande, as laid down in Bennett’s programme, 
end the fishing trip, and it is with many regrets 
that the sportsman bids adieu to Herr Sivertsen 
and his family, who take great pains to make the 
guest comfortable, and, to judge from the compli¬ 
mentary remarks made in the hotel book, invari¬ 
ably succeed. On leaving, a three nours’ drive 
takes the tourist by a good road through magni¬ 
ficent scenery to Vadheira, a small station on the 
Sogn Fjord, where a steamer is met which leaves 
at 11.3() a.m., arriving at Bergen at seven, pass¬ 
ing through the usual grand fjord scenery. It 
will be presumed that the traveller has engaged 
a room at Smebj’s Hotel, and on the following 
day at noon he will commence his return journey, 
by one of Wilson’s steamers. The return berth 
has to be secured at the Bergen agent office (at a 
short distance from Smeby’s Hotel), or landing 
from England, as the return berthing is left in 
the hands of the Bergen agent, a most courteous 
Norwegian gentleman. The steamer stops on its 
home journey at Stavenger, and, even if there be 
a heavy sea outside, a pleasant and smooth pas¬ 
sage is to be had so far. All being well, Hull is 
reached early in the morning of the third day, 
and the train leaving at 10 a.m. lands the tourist 
at King’s Cross at three o’clock. 
ON THINGS IN GENERAL, AND 
GROUND-BAITING IN PARTICULAR. 
By 0. 0. D. 
If we take the Thames, Trent, Lea, and Arun, 
ground-baiting differs in a very marked degree, 
and the systems followed by many Thames pro¬ 
fessionals vary as much as those adopted by some 
of the Lea men. I have often thought that if a 
Thames fisherman could be transported bodily 
with his punt, rods, tackle, rake, &o., and pails of 
ground-bait to the Trent, and take two or three 
old Trent anglers on board who had never fished 
in any other river but the Trent, and probably 
never fished from a boat, and there and then 
commence operations, they would most as¬ 
suredly wonder what was going to happen. On 
the other hand, a Trent angler might walk for 
long distances along some reaches of the Thames 
without seeing a single swim that would exactly 
suite his fine and far-off method; and what your 
Lea man would do for a bit of roaching pure and 
simple if suddenly deprived of his beloved pole, 
it would on the spur of the moment be difficult to 
say, fishing for roach with any other rod, in his 
estimation, being considered unsatisfactory. But 
it is simply ridiculous to suppose that there are 
not swims to be found both on the Trent and 
Thames, where roach congregate more or less at 
certain periods of the year, where the Lea method 
could be followed with deadly effect, particularly 
in those swims that could be operated upon from 
the bank without the shadow of his long pole 
being thrown upon the water, and especially in 
the deeper eddies all through the winter, or even 
on cold days in the summer ; for roach, like other 
fish, quickly accommodate themselves to a change 
of temperature. Again, it must be admitted that 
on the Trent, where one swim can be found to 
suit the Lea there are scores suited to the Trent 
style, and in this, as in several other instances, 
it is the river that has occasioned the style—a 
style begun many years ago in a rough and ready 
manner to suit the heavy fish then abounding, 
and gradually brought to its present state of 
perfection by a new generation of anglers, who 
look upon the old methods with a considerable 
amount of surprise, as well they may. 
Sixty or seventy years ago, barbel were so 
numerous it was very little consequence what 
tackle an angler fished with ; and I knew a boat¬ 
man who often used to capture barbel with a 
hook baited with a lob-worm, roughly tied on a 
piece of whipcord, and pulled them out by hand. 
I should like to see him do it now. As time went 
on, fish became more and more difficult to catch, 
until the new methods gradually, yet surely, took 
the place of the old. 
It goes without saying, that there are many 
swims on the Trent where an ordinary 22ft. Lea 
roach pole minus the two bottom joints could be 
used, but I should like to see a rod about the 
same length made with three joints, with the top 
piece a shade more pliant, and with the butt a 
trifle heavier; even then, it would (or should) be 
suffieiently light to be held in one hand for a 
whole day without the least fatigue. I know 
from experience that it is so much waste of time 
to try and convince an angler who has never 
caught big roach on a tight line that he does not,, 
and cannot possibly, know what roach fishing really 
is; and it one were to ttll him that catching 
roach with a running line is very similar to 
shooting sparrows with duck-shot he would only 
laugh at one. The Major would evidently call it 
a poaching arrangement; but, when keeping well 
out of sight and operating upon the most lovely- 
roach swims, with the rod held in one hand with 
the top dead over the float, with no reel or dis¬ 
jointing to attend to, with perfect command over 
ihe swim, very few fish ought to be missed or lost 
when fishing under such favourable circumstances 
as these; and it seems extraordinary that in a 
river where such swims abound, the style is not 
more followed. Two other rivers that such a rod 
would suit excellently well are the Mole and the 
Wey about By fleet. 1 have long ago come to the 
conclusion that fewer fish should be missed when 
adopting this method than any other, and I have 
caught many a big roach, a large number of 
heavy bream, and on one occasion a trout fi^lb., 
with a similar rod. The rod that Charley South 
constructs for fishing in the Ouse is an excellent 
rod for tight-line fishing for roach, and it is a 
capital rod for pegging for bream in such rivers 
as the Mole, Trent, Medway, and even in several 
swims in the Thames above Sunbury, and near 
Windsor, but it is much too heavy to hold in one 
hand for any length of time. It is wonderfully 
strong and elastic for a three-joint rod, and yet 
several anglers I know say they' would not be 
seen in a forty acre field with it. I do not think 
any other rod would suit the Ouse so well; any¬ 
how, old Charley ought to know, and when fish¬ 
ing with fineish tackle and a tight line “ that non¬ 
sport giving fish the bream ” (as someone some¬ 
where says) affords splendid sport, and takes 
all one’s time to hold him, especially in such a 
strong tidal river as the Arun. 
And this reminds me that the amount of sport 
to be obtained from the capture of any fish must 
of course entirely depend upon the tackle; but if 
tackle sufficiently’ fine be used, even the tooth¬ 
some gudgeon will afford capital sport. Owing 
to the wonderfully fine tackle they use, some of 
the best Sheffield anglers obtain splendid sport 
when bream fishing, even in still water, and I need 
scarcely say’ that the lighter a fish is hooked 
the more sport it is bound to give. I have 
repeatedly noticed that a jack, when hooked in 
the mouth -with a single hook, gives three times the 
sport than one with a brutal live gorge hook in 
its stomach. In the former case the fish, feeling 
comparatively little or no pain, puts into force its 
utmost strength to escape, whilst in the latter 
the wretched fish is di’agged in literally by its 
entrails often more dead than alive, as there is 
little or no resistance from the books to the 
trace. 
This is as far removed from sport as setting a 
lot of wretched, yelping, howling terriers on a 
number of miserable, defenceless rabbits, is 
removed from coursing proper. In short it is 
not sport but brutality’, and ought to be sup¬ 
pressed. A good many Lea fishermen have found 
out that throwing in such vast quantities of bread 
and bran, as they were in the habit of doing not 
so many years ago, is a great mistake. I am 
now speaking more especially’ when fishing in 
warm weather, for as a rule the less ground- 
bait used in the winter the better, for such fish 
as barbel, bream, tench, carp, and eels scarcely 
ever feed. It is a mistake, because in warm 
weather the roach very often prefer the mixture 
of bread and bran to the paste on the hook. I do 
myself. I can eat one, but I cannot eat the other, 
being very often a nasty clarty, sticky, disagree¬ 
able “ mosh,” but the bread and bran is not half 
so bad. They prefer the above bait, with the 
usual result, that they gorge themselves with-the 
ground-bait ard refuse the hook-bait. But more 
of this anon. 
(To he continued.) 
