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FOREST AND STREAM.- 
[May 21, 1910. 
had for the asking, salmon fishing where of 
any account is almost invariably reserved. 
Terms, however, are, as a rule, much more 
liberal than in Scotland or England. 
The early spring floods on the Shannon this 
season have been quite exceptional. All that 
reach of the river from Ree to Derg, a distance 
of some forty miles, presented the appearance 
of a vast lake, many of the riverside dwellers 
being flooded out, their holdings submerged, 
their little belongings destroyed, they them¬ 
selves forced to take shelter in remote towns 
and villages, often in a condition of extreme 
destitution. This part of the river course is 
particularly flat and so subject to these de¬ 
structive inundations. High water is fatal to 
good salmon angling on the Shannon, but so 
shallow are the reaches of Castleconnell and 
Killaloe that even the high floods of the present 
spring only told prejudicially on the fishing for 
a few days. Early in March the floods gave 
way a little, and the first week of that month an 
angler on Newgarden killed seven fish, includ- 
two 30-pounders, while on Hermitage the same 
week two fish of thirty-three pounds each, an¬ 
other of twenty-nine and a half pounds and 
one of seventeen pounds were brought to boat. 
But the salmon fishing all over the United 
Kingdom is proving quite a record this spring, 
in Scotland, especially on the Tay, some very 
fine baskets being made. One fortunate angler 
on this river took twelve salmon one day in 
late February, averaging seventeen pounds, a 
spring record which has not been equaled on 
any Scottish water for very many years. 
The most remarkable day’s salmon fishing on 
the Shannon, however, which has fallen under 
notice in twenty years or more was obtained 
this season, not at Castleconnell, but on a com¬ 
paratively unknown water at Limerick itself, a 
short way above Athlunkard Bridge. This 
reach certainly fishes fairly well now and then, 
but is most uncertain. This year, however, it 
is doing wonders. Nine salmon were taken on 
it one day last month by a troller in less than 
four hours, some of the fish being over thirty 
pounds in weight. Already several forty- 
pounders have to be recorded, two of them be¬ 
ing got on this Limerick water. 
All this salmon fishing on the Shannon is 
riparian, and is in the hands of riverside pro¬ 
prietors whose places of residence generally 
give name to the river stretch along which 
their lands extend. As there are from four to 
six of these proprietors on each bank and the 
whole length of fishable river at Castleconnell 
is little more than two miles, some of these 
fisheries are of very limited extent indeed, and 
each one, too, only extends to the center of the 
river. Still so highly valued is the fishing here, 
owing to the size. of the fish running, that , n 
Castleconnell rod in spring is not to be ex¬ 
pected on even a narrow water under from £20 
to £25 a week, and then of course there are 
other expenses. As a matter of fact, a rod is 
tut seldom to be let at all for the spring fishing. 
Then there remains all the rest of the river to 
be considered; the dull deep reaches extending 
from Castleconnell to Allen, including the two 
great lakes, a hundred miles of fishing water, 
such as it is, and all free and open without let 
or hindrance or even the necessity to ask per¬ 
mission. Of all this water it may be said at 
once, that while salmon abound in it, they 
show but little sport, it has but a local interest, 
and while a close troller at Tarmonbarry, 
Athlone, Banagher or one or two other places 
may between Feb. I and May 1 secure, if he be 
lucky, half a dozen fish, the chances are he will 
fall far short of it. High water in these deeper 
parts of the river makes trolling hopeless, while 
anything like tempestuous weather makes it 
practically impossible. 
The average weight of spring fish on these 
upper open reaches of the Shannon is from 
twelve to fourteen pounds, only a fish of twenty 
pounds being very rare, and this applies to 
both netting and angling alike, so that it is 
clear the heavy salmon do not ascend much 
higher than Killaloe at least in spring. The 
method of fishing on the Shannon is everywhere 
the same, so far as spring salmon are con¬ 
cerned, a trolled bait, natural or artificial, being 
the angler’s sheet anchor at all times, though 
indeed the mounting of an artificial may be 
taken as the last effort of despair. Still, to give 
the river its due, it remains to be said we have 
known a troller account for twenty springers 
and better in one' season more than once these 
last few years, though against that we have, alas, 
to place one or two absolute blanks. 
The open salmon fishing of the Shannon— 
and most free and open salmon fishing in Ire¬ 
land for that matter—reminds us not a little 
of that historic dinner Dr. Johnson and Boswell 
were invited to by a certain London host of a 
mean penurious turn. The dinner was dis¬ 
tinctly poor, and Boswell, finding occasion after 
they had got home and before separating for 
the night to put the question which was burn¬ 
ing him, to the sage, asked: “And, what, sir, did 
you think of our dinner to-night?” “Well, sir, 
it was a good, wholesome dinner,” said John¬ 
son, “good enough for anyone; but it was no 
dinner to ask a man to.” 
Open British salmon fishing is often good 
enough for the man on the spot who can wait 
on the conditions, but it is seldom worth asking 
a man to. 
The question of baits for spring trolling is a 
somewhat thorny one, especially as it may be 
fairly taken to include their mounting, for on 
this latter point feeling is beginning to run 
high in some quarters. First as to the baits 
* themselves, they are difficult to be procured 
locally, but gudgeon can be obtained alive in 
any quantity from various dealers in both Eng¬ 
land and Ireland in time for the opening day 
of the season. It is far from easy to keep these 
little fish alive for three or four months, but I 
have known anglers who never failed to do so 
year after year, but the race of such men seems 
fast dying out. So very convenient are baits 
preserved in formation that many anglers use 
nothing else, though there seems little doubt 
that such baits are less attractive than fresh or 
salted ones. Where formation dulls the natural 
sheen of baits, as it does with gudgeon, it 
should not perhaps be used, but with dace and 
sprats, which lose nothing of their silver lustre 
in it, I think it an excellent preservative. To 
salt gudgeon or other little fish for bait, pro¬ 
ceed as follows: 
Prepare a sufficient bath with baysalt, and 
see that the solution is not excessive or the 
salt may stick to the fish and chip off their 
scales. To prevent this, sift the salt into a 
vessel of hot water kept steadily stirred until 
the salt is found settling in the bottom of the 
vessel in spite of the stirring, which shows the 
point of saturation is reached. Then allow the 
bath to become quite cold, after which pour 
off the water into another vessel, taking care 
to allow none of the salt at the bottom to get 
in. Steep the freshly killed fish in this water 
for twenty-four hours and then take out care¬ 
fully one by one, spreading out on a clean dry 
cloth but not touching. Turn them to com¬ 
plete drying, all this care being taken to pre¬ 
vent as far as possible the scales from being 
rubbed off. When quite dry pack away in a 
store box, tin for choice, in layers, no fish 
actually touching another or the box. Suf¬ 
ficient dry salt to prevent this is to be used, 
and baits so treated will keep quite good and 
bright all the year. A small box sufficient to 
keep enough for the day will also be necessary, 
and let them be placed away in this quite as 
carefully as in the big one. Salted baits shrivel 
up considerably, but recover to a great extent 
and very rapidly when in use. Baits of a large 
size should, however, be selected for salting 
We have found baits (gudgeon) treated in this 
way very effective, and there seems little to 
choose between them and fresh ones. At the 
same time we are not prepared to go so far as 
those who say salted baits are specially attrac¬ 
tive to salmon and other fish, though the ques¬ 
tion of salted and scented baits and bajts treated 
wfith certain preparations and oils and the like 
so as to render them specially attractive to fish 
is one on which the last word has not yet by 
any means been said. The question of bait 
mounting and of spinners and flights for the 
purpose is, however, one of too much inpor- 
tance to be adequately dealt with at the end of 
an already long paper. Shannon Shore. 
Chesapeake Bay Shad Song. 
Daybreak on de ol’ blue bay, 
Cum erlong, Sam and Remus. 
De tide am runnin’ flood to-day, 
So pull lak Nicodemus; 
Pull to de edge ob de long gill net 
When de fat white shad am stringin’, 
En lif’ dem up all drippin’ wet 
Wid de salt en seaweed dingin’. 
De big white shad he swish en flap 
When he fin’s hisself in de old fishtrap; 
But de mo’ he fight de mo’ he pull 
En still we fill dem hampehs full, 
Big shad, li’l shad, buck shad, roe— 
Piled up high in de ol’ bateau. 
A lonely life de shad man lead 
Out in his drif’ wood shanty. 
But his pipe en jug am all he need 
En his table nebbah scanty, 
Ob all de ketch he hes de pick 
To brown in his bacon spideh. 
Oh, good Lawd, when de shad run thick, 
Ah wish mah mouf was wideh. 
En still dem hampers full we fetch 
Till de buy boat cum en buy our ketch, 
Shad foh de rich man, shad foh de po’, 
Shad det’s high and shad det’s low. 
Ob all de bay fish to be had 
De king ob all am de ol’ white shad. 
—New York Sun. 
All the fish laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Gdme Laws in Brief. See adv. 
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