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THE ADVENTURES 
 
 A SALMON 
 
 IN THE RIYEK DEE, 
 
 BY A FEIEND OF THE FAMILY. 
 
 ' . " 6 
 
 ■7V^ 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 NOTES FOR THE FLY-FISHER 
 
 IN 
 
 NORTH A^.ALES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING; 
 
 GEORGE PRICHARD, CHESTER. 
 
 18 5 3. 
 
s-nks. 
 
 ^1 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The very general interest manifested of late on the 
 subject which has suggested the following pages, 
 would seem to render any apology for their publication 
 unnecessary; nor does the Author pretend to claim 
 the merit of originality, where others of such pre- 
 eminence have already enlisted the sympathies of the 
 public on its behalf 
 
 In attempting to give a summary of the principal i 
 difficulties and dangers which attend the propagation 
 and preservation of the Salmon in the Dee, he has 
 been instigated primarily by a desire to awaken a 
 warmer interest in the welfare of that particular river ; 
 and he has been encouraged by a conviction that a 
 statement of facts, taken from any locality, by one to 
 whom opportunity was afforded, could not fail to apply 
 generally ; and that, as the mite of a contributor to a 
 cause of general import, his efforts, however humble, 
 might, he tru^s, be accepted in a kindly spirit, and 
 offered without presumption. 
 
 Chester, St. David's Day, 1853. 
 
 IVI8-1G476 
 
ahfuturBs nf a lulmnii. 
 
 chapter $• 
 
 ^^^HE recollections of my early life are few 
 ^^^ and somewhat indefinite. 
 
 Probably they would be still more so but for the 
 faculty with which our tribe are endowed ; a faculty 
 peculiar to most migratory beings, and, perhaps, 
 in none more powerfully developed than in the 
 Sahno salar ; that faculty of early recollection, 
 which both prompts and facilitates our constant 
 return to the scenes of our birth and infancy. 
 
 My first reminiscence is that of floating about 
 in a shallow part of the river Dee, which at that 
 spot ran without a ripple over a broad gravel bed, 
 every pebble of which seemed to share in the 
 searching rays of the unshadowed sun. I very 
 well recollect experiencing a negative sense of 
 enjoyment in the first use of my fins ; not 
 absolutely seeking motion, but just hovering 
 about and playing with the stream ; sometimes 
 
4 TEIE ADVENTURES 
 
 letting it take me a few yards down the river and 
 then, — -just as the edge of the grey gravel bed 
 seemed sinking away into unknown depths, — 
 putting forth my little strength and returning to 
 the safe shallows, where no destructive monsters 
 were lurking to destroy me. Not that I had 
 any idea of danger ; oh no I that has come with 
 after years of experience. I was then in happy 
 ignorance. I did not even know the dangers 
 from which I had already escaped. I viewed with 
 an admiration in which fear was not unmingled, 
 some beings whom I regarded as leviathans, who, 
 with immense scales glittering in the sunshine, 
 came wandering in parties of six, or twelve, 
 or even twenty, through the very shallows in 
 which my brothers and myself were rejoicing, 
 apparently eager in the pursuit of prey of which 
 we formed no part. I knew not then that these 
 fish, whom I have since learned to look down 
 upon with some contempt, were seeking the very 
 eggs, the spawn, of which I and others were 
 the produce ; and that had not the powerful rays 
 of the sun brought me into existence beforp I 
 was disturbed from the loose gravel which pro- 
 tected me, I should certainly have served for 
 food to these ravenous creatures. I was now, 
 however, beyond the range of food for Chub 
 or Dace. 
 
OF A SALMON. 5 
 
 By the way, I well remember that for some 
 days I sought no food myself. A small bag 
 (though almost as large as myself) hung sus- 
 pended from my throat, and gave me some 
 annoyance, by impeding my early movements ; 
 this bag I much rejoiced to find diminishing, 
 and one morning my delight was great at 
 being entirely rid of it ; but with its departure 
 came a new sense ; the first cravings of hunger 
 quickened my already increased powers of 
 volition, and I eagerly began to seek for food, 
 like the finny tribe around me. 
 
 In this early stage of my career I must plead 
 guilty to having myself sought prey too nearly 
 related to my former state. Spawn which had 
 been washed from its bed, and came floating 
 through the shallows, constituted the first food 
 I nibbled at; and thus, I very much fear, I have 
 given too much way to a temptation which has 
 served to destroy some thousands of my own 
 species, ere yet they saw the light. I soon, 
 however, learned to pursue with avidity a dif- 
 ferent food in the insect tribe which rejoiced in 
 their own element as they darted hither and 
 thither through the clear water, in pursuit of 
 prey still more minute than themselves. 
 
 Very soon the gravel bed and its sunny shal- 
 lows ceased to content me. I began to shun 
 
b THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the shoals of gaudy minnows which shared its 
 quiet waters ; and sometimes following the 
 admired dace in their return to deeper streams, 
 I learned to delight in what seemed to me the 
 wide world of waters beyond its boundaries. 
 Daily my excursions became more prolonged and 
 extensive ; until finding myself powerful enough 
 to contend with the stream in a shallow part 
 about the very centre of the river, I finally 
 deserted the spot which gave me birth, for this 
 now more agreeable resort, and passed my 
 hours in wandering from one part of the stream 
 to another ; awhile chasing the flies which 
 alighted for a moment on its surface, — anon 
 hurrying after a morsel of grain floating down 
 the river, — seizing with avidity a stray worm 
 or beetle, — or retiring to rest beneath the shadow 
 of a large stone which caused a curling eddy in 
 the centre of the stream. 
 
 I was now entering on that stage of my ex- 
 istence in which I became dignified with the 
 appellation of the Samlet, or Smelt. Still inferior 
 in size to the dace of my early acquaintance, 
 I was assuming something of the character and 
 beautiful proportions which distinguished my 
 later life, and became myself conscious of beauty 
 and power : the colouring of my very minute 
 and silvery scales assumed a vivid and gay ap- 
 
OF A SALMON. 7 
 
 pearance ; regular marks of deep violet displayed 
 themselves at intervals along my sides, and the 
 delicate tracery which formed my fins and tail 
 united itself with muscles of powerful proportions. 
 In short, I found myself already of superior grade 
 to the poor sleepy dace, and enjoyed dartitig 
 through rapids which his less vigorous nature 
 would have shunned to encounter. My com- 
 panions were now the wily and audacious trout, 
 (a hranch, indeed of our family) and though 
 instinct taught me to shun too near an ap- 
 proximation with those of larger growth, yet 
 our haunts, hahits, and pursuits were for the 
 most part identical. 
 
 As the season advanced our food hecame more 
 plentiful. The water abounded with rich swarms 
 of delicious winged insects which floated down 
 its surface, until, glutted with the large brown 
 May flies that came sailing along, with wings 
 extended to the sunshine, or fluttering just within 
 our reach, — fed to satiety with gnat, moth, and 
 beetle, — green, brown, red, yellow, and dun — 
 that ofiered themselves for our repast, — the sum- 
 mer evening often found us jumping for sport at 
 the little midges that hung in swarms suspended 
 over the surface of some quiet pool, shaded by 
 willows and wild alders. 
 
 It was about this period of my existence that 
 
« THE ADVENTURES 
 
 an incident occurred which can never be for- 
 gotten, which caused me at the time infinite 
 alarm and dismay, and for the first time in my 
 life taught me, by sad experience, the reality of 
 pain and danger. It was long afterwards ere I 
 knew exactly what had happened to me. The 
 shock itself was so sudden, its effects so stun- 
 ning and bewildering, that my senses were for 
 the time entirely taken away, and when I 
 returned to consciousness all that had occurred 
 appeared to me like a horrid dream, which I 
 could neither account for nor understand. 
 
 It was on a fine evening towards the latter 
 end of May, that, having a well satisfied appe- 
 tite, I was enjoying a careless pursuit of occa- 
 sional flies which passed down the stream, when 
 I became suddenly aware of the approach of a 
 trout of unusually large size, who had emerged 
 from a neighbouring deep hole, from which, as 
 his residence, I had always kept at a respectful 
 distance. Kather fluttered by his appearance, 
 I darted away among the shallower water, whence, 
 turning again to regard him, I was reassured by 
 perceiving that I was not the object of his 
 pursuit, and became aware at the same moment 
 of two very beautiful insects, which seemed, the 
 one to fly, and the other to pursue across the 
 surface of the stream, and which had apparently 
 
OF A SALMON. 9 
 
 tempted him from his lurking-place : between 
 these two he seemed to hesitate, and after fol- 
 lowing them with longing eye, to the very edge 
 of the river, — he, as if struck by a sudden 
 sense of danger, — again darted rapidly past me, 
 and sought retreat in the deep waters of his 
 shady covert. Again and again, to my surprize, 
 the two beautiful strangers came floating passed 
 me, but no wary trout pursued them as before, 
 and undeterred by his presence, I hastily rose 
 to the surface, and seized, what seemed to be, 
 the glittering beetle as it swept across the stream. 
 Suddenly a sharp sting as it were, pierced my 
 jaw; I felt myself lifted at once from the river 
 to fly through the air, and fall violently among 
 the green grass of a meadow which lined its 
 banks ; a choking sensation seized my gills, 
 which seemed to lose the power of respiration ; 
 a hot human hand lifted me from the ground ; I 
 heard a voice, in a tone of mingled annoyance 
 
 and compassion, exclaim, " Poor little ! " 
 
 and all consciousness vanished. When I came 
 to myself I found myself again in my native 
 element, floating exhausted on my side in some 
 shallow water ; it was some time ere I regained 
 strength or presence of mind to seek a more secure 
 asylum; and when I once more found myself 
 under the shadow of a stone in deep water, long 
 
10 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 did I ponder, and wonder, and tremble in medita- 
 ting over this strange event. It was to me a 
 complete mystery, and long remained so, nor 
 am I quite sure that I even now fully understand 
 it. For some time after this affair I carefully 
 eschewed all glittering beetles ; and it was long 
 before I again rose boldly and unhesitatingly at 
 the fly at all ; but hunger has no law ; and find- 
 ing, after sundry tremulous and hesitating 
 essays, that I might still feed securely as before, 
 I at length, by degrees, forgot my fears. 
 
 Not long after this memorable event T had a 
 narrow escape from a danger which I more fully 
 understood, and which terminated fatally to one 
 of my joyous companions. We, Samlets, were 
 not of solitary habits ; though not sailing after 
 each other in sleepy shoals, like the tame dace, 
 we kept much together, and at the time of 
 which I speak, the waters of the Dee were 
 peopled by multitudes of our family. Dropping 
 down one day, with three or four others, to the 
 tail of a stream which poured its long continued 
 ripple into a pool of, to us, unknown depth and 
 extent, and intent on the pursuit of the insect 
 tribe on the surface of the water, we took no 
 note of £i monstrous being of our own species, 
 which at first appeared like a log of wood, or the 
 branch of a dead tree, as he lay motionless, and 
 
OF A SALMON. 11 
 
 but for his bright green eyes, apparently lifeless, 
 basking in the shallow water at one side of the 
 pool, and seemingly indifferent to all that past 
 around him. Up and down the stream — before 
 and behind him— nearer and nearer we ventured, 
 in idle curiosity, nor dreamt of danger; until 
 suddenly, with a rush that sent the waters eddy- 
 ing from his tail, he dashed among us, his white 
 belly gleaming in the sunshine ; and never shall 
 I forget the thrill of despair with which I beheld 
 those enormous jaws extended to devour, and 
 felt myself, for the moment, at the mercy of a 
 ravenous Pike ! Fortunately for me his desires 
 were fixed on one of my bicother samlets, at that 
 moment close to my side, and those frightful 
 rows of teeth having closed with a snap on the 
 bleeding sides of his wretched victim, he bore 
 him off in triumph, to discuss the feast at leisure, 
 in the deep waters which soon hid him from our 
 view. 
 
 Time would fail me did I attempt to recount 
 the thousand and one perils from which I escaped 
 during the first year of my existence ; the two I 
 have related must serve as specimens of the 
 dangers and disasters which surround the young 
 salmon. Suffice it to say, that escape I did, 
 the repeated snares of the angler; the nets and 
 night-lines of the poacher ; the attacks of pike, 
 
12 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 large trout, otters, rats, &c., &c., — and passed 
 the first twelve months of my life wandering 
 from Llangollen to Llansaintffraid, up to Corwen, 
 Croggyn, and even paid a hasty visit to the 
 waters of the Tegid Lake, where however, I did 
 not remain many hours — convinced that in that 
 direction the wandering propensities I already felt 
 were not to he pursued farther. 
 
 The returning spring found me still in the 
 Dee, now become really a handsome fish, much 
 too large to fear a trout, and too wary and swift 
 in my movements to have much cause for dread 
 of even the voracious pike, so long as I kept 
 clear of his deep stronghold. Still, I was but a 
 Samlet, though of last year's growth ; the violet 
 streaks yet marked my speckled sides, and my 
 long elegant form differed much from that of the 
 Salmon morts, whom I occasionally encountered, 
 and from whom I learnt something of my future 
 destiny. 
 
 As the summer advanced, an instinct, which I 
 cannot describe, led me to direct my wanderings 
 down the river; each successive flood, which 
 followed a few days' rain, gave me an opportu- 
 nity, which I eagerly seized, of floating still 
 further with the turbid current, and of passing 
 with comparative security, those long deep pools 
 which succeed each other in some localities of 
 
OF A SALMON. 18 
 
 the Dee, and where, in clearer and lower water, 
 I should infallibly have fallen a sacrifice to the 
 pike with which they abound. 
 
 From stream to stream, — from pool to pool, — 
 over first one weir, and then another ; until the 
 month of June found me laying in the quiet 
 still water, just above the weir at Chester, where 
 at length a sweeping flood carried me over the 
 causeway, and on the very next day I was rolling 
 in the delights of salt water, seeking another 
 food, and revelling, as it were, in the fresh enjoy- 
 ment of a new existence and of another element. 
 
Cljapter M. 
 
 (©WH'AJ^EAVJNG our young Salmon in embryo 
 
 to make his first trip to the sea, suppose 
 we take a short glance at the river Dee, 
 and enquire what is known of its history ; its 
 former and present state, and the prospects 
 which it may possess of continuing to be among 
 the most celebrated rivers of the kingdom, for 
 the quality, the quantity, and the size of its 
 fish. 
 
 That the fishery of the Dee has always, at 
 least beyond the memory of man, or of existing 
 written record, been valuable, and probably always 
 a salmon river, there remains ample evidence. 
 
 The right of fishing on the Dee, has ever been 
 a highly esteemed privilege ; it frequently formed 
 part of the royal grants, or was leased as part 
 of the royal revenue; and both nobles and 
 priests, the Abbot of St. Werburgh, and the 
 
16 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Mayor of Chester, laid claim to certain portions 
 of the river as tenaciously as of any other 
 manor or domain. 
 
 Of these grants and privileges in the upper 
 parts of the river scarcely any records are left, 
 though no doubt they existed. The Lords of 
 the Manor, and large landed proprietors probably 
 exercised arbitrary rights in their own immediate 
 neighbourhood, and monopolised the fishing 
 within certain limits ; but it was not likely that 
 they would neglect to substantiate their authority 
 by deeds, which it was easy for them to procure. 
 A river which was so valuable for its fishery at 
 Chester, cannot but have been also richly 
 abundant in the neighbourhood of Bangor 
 Monachorum and Valle Crucis Abbey ; but the 
 records concerning both secular and ecclesiastical 
 estates in a remote country, are not so easily 
 accessible as those relating to a city of ancient 
 privileges and importance, and are either hidden 
 in private collections or have ceased to exist. 
 
 The only records we have, therefore, of the 
 Fishery of the Dee relate chiefly to Chester. 
 The first of them occurs in the charter of Hugh 
 Lupus to the Monks of St. Werburgh, in 
 1093. The original of this charter is lost, 
 but it is recapitulated in a confirmatory charter 
 from the second Earl, Kanulph, which has been 
 
OF A SALMON. 17 
 
 lately found,^ and which, among other things, 
 grants to the Monks " a full tenth of the 
 fishery at Eton,t and of all that pertain thereto," 
 " and a tenth of the fishery of Eueland 
 (Rhydlan) and a tenth from the ships ; " (de 
 navibus) supposed to be vessels bringing fish to 
 the port of Chester. Ranulph, after confirming 
 all the former Charter, gives '' the tenth penny 
 of all my revenue of the city, and of every fish 
 -taken in the Dee" (in aqua de Dee.) 
 
 As no mention is made of any particular 
 portion of the river, we gather that the Earl then 
 claimed the whole of it, at least within the 
 rights of the Palatinate. This right must have 
 been alienated by subsequent grants of which we 
 have no record ; as we find in the 1 7th of Edwd. 
 the 1st (1289), that the rights, vested in the 
 Crown, as Earl of Chester, were confined to the 
 Mills and fishery " belonging to the Bridge." 
 
 In 1227 the freemen of Llangollen endowed 
 the Monks of Valle Crucis Abbey "with a 
 
 * Translation read at the November Monthly Meeting 
 of the Chester Archaeological Society, by the Rev. W. 
 Massie. 
 
 t The Earl's right to the possession of Eton is 
 mentioned in Domesday, with the particulars of the 
 fishery. "Ibi piscaria reddit M salmones et VI pisca- 
 tores et una acra prati." — Ormerod ii, 452. 
 
18 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 fishery in a part of the river near the town ; and 
 for want of a seal of their own they affixed to 
 their grant that of the founder. The monks 
 soon after erected new works on the river for 
 the purpose of taking the fish, which caused a 
 dispute between them and the freemen; the 
 latter agreed to refer the matter, for decision," (oh 
 simple hearted freemen of Llangollen !) "to the 
 abbot and five monks of their own choice, who 
 were to determine it on oath. Madog and his. 
 secretary John Parvus (Little John?) appointed 
 a day for the purpose. The meeting was held, 
 the oath administered, and the abbot and monks 
 decided in their own favour ! They alleged that 
 they had bought the right of erecting what 
 works they pleased, and of repairing them, from 
 the heirs of Llangollen. The Prince confirmed 
 the decree and the donation of the fishery, by an 
 instrument dated a.d. 1234."* 
 
 Our next authority occurs in 1219, (Edward 
 I.,) and is so interesting that we venture to give a 
 translation of part of it in full. 
 It consists of the order for, and the result of, a 
 commission from the King to inquire into certain 
 losses, said to have been sustained by one of his 
 officers, to whom he had assigned '' his mills of 
 
 * Arcliceologia Camhrensis — 1st series, 1 vol. p. 23, 
 quoting Pennant, Edition 1810, vol. 2, p. 5. 
 
..'.«'; 
 
OF A SALMON. 19 
 
 Chester and his fishery in the water of Dee/' for 
 an annual rent of £200. It is observable that 
 this is the only document in which we have this 
 part of the Fishery distinctly named apart from 
 the Dee Mills, (with which it was in later times 
 always conveyed), and stated as belonging to the 
 Bridge. The record runs thus ; — 
 
 " Writ from King Edward the 1st, wherein (having 
 lately confided to Master Richard his Engineer, his 
 Mills of Chester and his fishery in the water of Dee, 
 belonging to the bridge over that water, to hold 
 for a term of 12 years, on yielding to his Exchequer at 
 Chester, annually, two hundred pounds ; and the same 
 Richard declaring that by reason of inundations of the 
 said waters frequently occurring, he had sustained 
 serious loss and damage) commissions Reginald de Grey, 
 his Justice of Chester, that he should diligently enquire 
 how much damage and loss the said Richard had 
 sufiered from the said cause ; and if 'the said Richard 
 had any blame therein or not. Dated 7 day of 
 September, in the 17th year of his reign. 
 
 *' Inquisition being made, in the same year, a jury 
 declared. That after our Lord the King had delivered 
 his Fishery of the bridge of Chester to Master Richard 
 the Engineer for a lease of 12 years ; in the first year 
 of the same lease, so many inundations of water had 
 frequently arisen, whilst the said Richard remained on 
 the King's service at Karnarvon, that it had not been 
 possible to set the fish traps [ci^ates] under the bridge ; 
 and that the aforesaid fishing pools and granaries 
 together mth the walls of the mills, had been thrown 
 
 D 
 
20 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 down and carried away ; by which the said Richard 
 had sustained a loss and damage of 40 pounds. Also 
 that for the thiee following years, whilst the said 
 Richard, by occasion of wars, was serving our Lord 
 the King in Wales ; through superabundant inundations 
 of waters, the pools and traps aforesaid, together with 
 the Causeway had been dispersed and carried away 
 whence the said Richard in regard to the aforesaid 
 Fishery had sustained damage and loss to the value of 
 60 Pounds. Also at the time that* the said Richard 
 was engaged in the service of our Lord the King at 
 Trosselan; the Cause way aforesaid by similar inundations 
 remained thrown down and carried away ; through 
 which the aforesaid mills, for nearly one quarter of a 
 year, had not been able to grind. Whence from this 
 and such like inundations, frequently for the whole 
 term aforesaid, happening, the aforesaid mills had most 
 frequently remained without working; through which the 
 said Richard by loss of multure in the aforesaid 
 time, had suffered loss and damage to the amount of 
 54 pounds."* 
 
 It appears by the foregoing that the right of 
 fishing in that part of the river immediately 
 attached to the Bridge and the Mills was valued 
 at about £20 a-year; a great sum in those days. 
 
 In the reign of Edward III. Robert de Eton 
 held the office of '' Grand Serjeant of the Dee," 
 which had even then so long been an office of 
 value and dignity, that he claimed it as belonging 
 
 * Harleiaii MSS, 2053—171 
 
OF A SALMON. 21 
 
 to his family, *' by prescription of himself and his 
 ancestors having held the same beyond legal 
 memory." The serjeancy of the Dee extended 
 from Eton Weir to Arnoldsheire.'^ The service 
 consisted in clearing the river of all nets impro- 
 perly placed there, and of taking them to Chester 
 Castle to be condemned ; on account of which 
 service he claimed certain of the nets, together 
 with the fish taken in them, and also the privilege 
 of a ferry-boat across the river at Eaton. f It 
 appears that the weir at Eton existed at this 
 time, as certain tolls are granted to Eobert de Eton 
 
 * The locality of Arnolds-hire, Arnolds-heire, or Ar- 
 nolds-hare, has been a matter of some dispute. Ormerod 
 and others place it opposite Chester Castle ; Lysons, 
 with greater reason supposes it to be the Ked Stones 
 near Hoylake ; but a consultation of the deeds and 
 papers relating to the Serjeancy of the Dee, among 
 the muniments at Eaton Hall, (to which, by the 
 courtesy of the Marquess of Westminster, we have 
 had free access) shews the locality to have been, either 
 the Point of Ayre itself (as the penultimate of Arnolds- 
 heire suggests) or some spot in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 t The charge for ferrying being somewhat singular; — 
 ''for which he shall be paid by the neighbours according 
 to their pleasure, but shall receive from every stranger 
 if he has a horse and is a merchant, one halfpenny ; if 
 not a merchant, the payment to he at his option.'''' 
 
22 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 in his office of Serjeant of the Dee for every hoat 
 which passed liis weir. 
 
 John de EtoD, the son and heir of this Eobert 
 de Eton, is commanded by a warrant from Prince 
 Henry IV. to clear ail obstructions from the Dee, 
 and bring the forfeited nets to the Castle of Chester, 
 as " Custos Ripariae de Dee." Frequent mention 
 is made up to this date, among other rights of 
 fishing possessed by different parties, of " Stalls 
 in the Dee." Sometimes they are called stall 
 nets, sometimes nets ; and some doubt has arisen 
 as to what these rights of " Stalls in the Dee" 
 were meant to express. Robert de Eton, in right 
 of his serjeancy, claimed "two stalls and two 
 free boats on the Dee." Among the temporalities 
 of the Abbey of St. Werburgh at the dissolution 
 are mentioned " vii fyshynge stalls w* in the water 
 of Dee, in the P'ysshe of Saynt Marie's in Chester;" 
 and it appears from Eobert de Eton's title as Ser- 
 jeant that these nets were set,*or drawn, from Dee 
 Bridge to Blacon; for he claims *' a moiety of all 
 nets forfeited and of the fish therein as far as stall 
 nets are placed, viz, from Dee Bridge to Blaken." 
 It appears most likely that these were fixed, or 
 stake nets, of certain dimensions, within certain 
 boundaries, which no one had a right to set unless 
 they could show some grant from one of the Earls 
 of Chester. The fishery of the King's part, stated 
 
OF A SALMON. 28 
 
 in Edward I. 's reign to belong to the Bridge, as 
 being worth £20, seems to have been estimated 
 at a very similar value in the reign of Henry 
 VII. ; but the powers before exercised by the 
 " Serjeant of the Dee," were at this time claimed 
 by the Corporation, under letters patent from 
 that Monarch. An inspeximus existing in 
 the Muniment-rooms in Chester Castle, lately 
 brought to light by Mr. Black, Assistant Keeper 
 of the Eolls, and bearing on this question, con- 
 tains a charter of which the following is a trans- 
 lation : — 
 
 ** Charter fjfltb of tl^t jfn 
 
 iParm antf Oi Ott^tV \Bti' I Henry, by the grace of God 
 
 ttr. 
 
 tSiltQt^ jgrantetr ta t^Z I King ©f England and France 
 
 and Lord of Ireland, to the 
 Archbishops, &c. 
 
 " We have granted, moreover, to the same citizens 
 and to their successors, for us and our heirs, that the 
 same mayor or sheriffs, their heirs or successors in 
 perpetual future times, have a scrutiny in the w^ater of 
 Dee from a certain place called the Irenbrigge, unto a 
 certain place, Arnoldshire, to survey and search all 
 nets, weirs, and other engines for taking fishes, found 
 in the same water, and, as well for examination as for 
 enquiry to take, carry, retain, and at their pleasure to 
 burn, all and singular those things which shall happen 
 to be found, set, or erected there against the form of 
 any statute set forth or ordained ; or to the destruction 
 
24 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 of the young fishes called fry, in punishment of those 
 who had so set or erected, or hereinafter presume to set 
 or erect such nets, weirs, or engines. And according to 
 the laws ordinances and customs of the aforesaid set 
 forth to bring to justice and to amerce all and sin- 
 gular those so setting the same nets, weirs, or engines 
 there, or to set fines or other penalties so to inflct 
 according to the ordinances aforesaid. And that they 
 have all fines and amercements, issues and forfeitures 
 for the aforesaid transgressions, howsoever assessed, and 
 by themseb'es their sheriffs or minister to be collected 
 and set. We will also and grant, and under heavy 
 forfeiture we prohibit that no one do make carry or take 
 over, or presume to make, carry, to take over, trenches 
 into the said water of Dee, within the metes^ limits or 
 or bounds aforesaid, or dung or other filth in boats or 
 other vessels through the water aforesaid, under pain 
 of forfeiture of those boats, vessels, and fined according 
 to the discretion of the Mayor and Sheriffs of the City 
 aforesaid, which forfeiture and fine aforesaid, we grant 
 and will to be had and perceived to the Citizens of the 
 City aforesaid and their successors, in relief and 
 payment of their farm of the City of Chester aforesaid 
 * * * * * In witness of wliich thing we 
 have caused these our letters to be made patent. 
 Witness myself at Chester, the 6th day of April, in the 
 21st year of our reign." ***** 
 
 The accounts of Elizabeth, reUct of Hugh Hurlston, 
 farmer, of the grain mill of Dee, with the fishery of 
 the waters of Dee, called the Kynge's- Pole ; and of 
 
OF A SALMON. 25 
 
 Hamaan Goodman, William Shaa, and Koger Smyth, 
 occupiers of the Fulling Mill there for the time aforesaid. 
 
 iTarm af tf^t^isf^trv of tl&c 
 WiKttv 0( Bn, rallrlr 
 ti)e Hgns^'i? IBalt. 
 
 And of twenty-four pounds of the farm of the fishery 
 and fish of a certain stank of the Lord the King, called 
 the Kynge's Pole of Dee, so demised to Hugh Hurleton, 
 to have and to hold, to the aforesaid Hugh, and to his 
 assigns, from the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 
 in the 19th year of the King that now is, Henry the 7th, 
 unto end of the term of twenty years then immediately 
 following, and fully to complete ; rendering, therefore, 
 yearly over and above all manner of charges, by the 
 said Hugh or his assigns, to be made and sustained in 
 this behalf to the aforesaid Lord the King, and his heirs. 
 Earls of Chester, £24, at the feast of Easter and St. 
 Michael the Archangel, by letters patent, under the 
 seal of his Exchequer of Chester, dated the 26th day 
 of September, in the 19th year of his reign, and enrolled 
 in the original of the minister's accounts of the 19th 
 year of the King aforesaid by mainprize of John Clyffe, 
 James Hurleton, son and heir of Thomas Hurleton, 
 Thomas Smyth, mercer, and Eichard Hockenhall, baker, 
 in this the 4th year of his term. Sum £24." 
 
 These meagre details, and .dry records of rights 
 long passed away, may enable us, when taken in 
 connection with other " signs of the times," to 
 cast a look back for some centuries and divine, 
 with some degree of certainty, what have been 
 
26 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the changes, not only in the jBshery of the Dee 
 and the manner of taking the fish, but in the 
 very character of the river itself. It seems pro- 
 bable that the natural state of the river formerly 
 provided much more efficiently for the propagation 
 and preservation of the fish than the most strin- 
 gent laws, or the heaviest penalties, can do now. 
 It is only within the last two centuries that such 
 parts of our country as the Dee traverses between 
 Bala and Bangor Iscoed has been subjected at 
 all to artificial drainage. Immense tracts of land 
 which are now drained, ploughed, and growing 
 grain, were then wholly uncultivated ; and re- 
 mained wide districts of bog and moss, with 
 here and there patches of rushy pasture, sup- 
 porting only a few cattle, wild horses, or sheep. 
 These, like a huge sponge, retained their waters 
 long after the rains fell, constantly feeding the 
 river, and preventing the possibility of those 
 shallow draughts which now follow any con- 
 tinued dry weather, while frequently, when 
 gorged to repletion, they poured forth their 
 overloaded reservoirs in such floods as we read 
 of in the inquiry made by order of Edward I. 
 and carried away nets, mills, and buildings alike. 
 The acts of the poacher were not only unavailing 
 in a river almost constantly full of water, but 
 the same cause rendered the weirs — now for 
 
OF A SALMON. 27 
 
 many weeks of the year absolutely impassable 
 to the salmon — no let or hindrance. With this 
 cause, others operated to protect the fish, making 
 them, if not more abundant in the market, attain 
 a larger size than are now commonly met with. 
 First of all was the rudeness of the tackle, its 
 much greater cost, and the poverty of the people. 
 It was not alone that Kobert de Eton, the Abbot 
 of St. Werburgh, or the King's officer, possessed 
 the privilege of certain nets and fishings in the 
 Dee ; but the people, in whom the possession of 
 nets was illegal, were too poor to transgress the 
 law by acquiring them. Nets in those days 
 must have been comparatively rare and costly; 
 not easily replaced or repaired,' and of inferior 
 size and manufacture. Of this we have some 
 evidence in the ''Household Book" of Henry 
 VIII. who, in changing his place of residence for 
 a time, was at considerable expense in conveying, 
 apparently, the same nets for the purpose of fishing. 
 There is an entry made on the 19th June, 1530, 
 
 " To Robert a Lee, for certayne netts, and for the 
 charges of the cariage of the same about w* the King's 
 grace £4 6s. 4d." 
 
 '* 16 Feby, 1532, pade to Robt a Lee for carrying 
 the King's netts from Waltham to Hownsden, 9s." 
 
 '* 13 May, 1532 to Robt a Lee for certayne netts 
 and for the charges of the carriage of them by the 
 space of one hole year, £5 10s. Od. 
 
 E 
 
28 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Angling, too, was scarcely a sport; fly-fishing 
 was unknown ; and though, from the same mi- 
 nutes of the Household Book, we find record of 
 Henry VIII.'s gratitude to a certain James Tylson, 
 to whom he " paide in rewarde for two angelyng 
 rodds that he brought to the King s Grace to 
 Hampton Co'te, Xs. ;" yet we find, from another 
 entry, that his Grace cared so little about the 
 sport himself, that he paid &Ye shillings " to cer- 
 tayne men that fished afore the King's Grace as 
 he went on hawking y In fact, though angling 
 was not unknown in those days, it was scarcely 
 recognised as a sport ; and if the peasant, with 
 his rude home-made tackle, occasionally secured 
 a prize in a full-grown fish, it was as one in a 
 thousand ; while the young fry were not, as now, 
 the constant prey of the amateur fly -fishers, that 
 are for ever whipping our streams. 
 
 The rude style of angling as late as the 14th 
 and 15th centuries, maybe gathered from old 
 prints and pictures of that period. The annexed 
 illustration is a fac-simile of a woodcut taken 
 from a tract printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 
 at Westminster, in 1496, small folio, entitled, 
 "The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle." 
 This book is a republication of a work known 
 to the curious as the "Book of St. Albans," 
 printed there in 1486, and written by Dame 
 
^dc=su^^l^ bouke-rt froiu a Woociml: 
 in Wj/nkyndeWorde's "Treatj/se 
 on f^skjyn^^e witk aix .Anpfe ! 
 
OF A SALMON. 29 
 
 July ana Barnes, Prioress of the Nunnery of 
 Sopewell, near St. Albans, a lady of noble family, 
 and celebrated for her learning and accomplish- 
 ments.* Her remarks are throughout very quaint. 
 Should the angler s sport fail him — 
 
 " he, atte the least, hath his holsome walk, and merry 
 at his ease — a sweete ayre of the sweete savoure of the 
 meede floures that makyth him hungry * * * and 
 if the angler take fyshe, surely there is noo man merier 
 than he is in his spyryte. * * * The Barbel is a 
 swete fyshe ; but it is a quasy meete, and a perellous 
 for mannys body, and if he be eten rawe (!) he may 
 be cause of manny's dethe, which hath oft be seen 
 * * * * The Carpe is a deyntous fyshe, but there 
 ben but fewe in Englande, and therefore I wryte the 
 lesse of hym." 
 
 It is amusing how all writers on angling, from 
 Dame Berners up to the present time, write of 
 
 * Besides this work of Dame Berners and its reprint 
 by VVynkyn de Worde, only three other publications 
 were issued in this country between the introduction of 
 printing and the publication of Isaac Walton, viz : 
 ''A booke of fisLing with hook and line, and of all other 
 instruments thereunto belonging ; made by L.M. ; 4to 
 London, 1590, 1596, 1600." The initials stood for 
 "Leonard Mascall." "Approved Experiments touching 
 Fishing and Fruit, to be regarded by the Lovers of 
 Angling," by Mr. John Turner ; in quarto, 1600. 
 " Barkers Art of Angling;" printed in 12mo., in 1651, 
 and again, in quarto, 1653. 
 
30 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the art, as though it required an apology — the 
 " at least holsome walk/' &c. So with Izaak 
 Walton, whose work may indeed be said to have 
 derived its beauty from the poetry of its apology. 
 
 It is difficult to arrive at a general idea of the 
 comparative value of fish in former times, parti- 
 cularly salmon. No doubt the great difference 
 in price at different seasons and in different places, 
 was due partly to the same causes which influenced 
 the fluctuation in prices of other provisions — a 
 liability to change from great abundance to abso- 
 lute scarcity in quick succession, to which our 
 advanced civilization no longer renders us subject. 
 But still the great variation in the price of fish 
 exceeds all allowance made on that score ; nor 
 can we well conceive, though assured by some 
 who have had it orally from their predecessors, 
 that it ever formed part of our Chester appren- 
 tice's indentures that he should not be compelled 
 to make more than three meals a week upon 
 salmon. 
 
 We find by a MS. existing in the Harleian 
 collection, that in the 28th year of Edward I. 
 "A man was sued for fishing in the King's part 
 below the Bridge (at Chester), and catching 20 
 salmons, worth 20 marks, and one salmon worth 
 10 shillings."* If this was at all a faithful valu- 
 
 * Harleian MSS. 2020. 
 
OF A SALMON. 81 
 
 atioD, and not rather an estimate of the ofifence 
 done to Eoyalty, it would prove that the Dee 
 salmon were in those days not only most valuable 
 as fish, hut out of all measure more valuable than 
 other salmon. In the "Eotulus Famiglise/' or 
 King's Household Book for the 1 8th year of the 
 same reign, we find the following entries : — 
 
 ''Bought of Roger de Freincourt, for the Lady de 
 Vesci, eight salmon pasties, 3s. 3Jd. 
 
 " For one salmon, bought of Chigg, 19d." 
 
 *' For half a salmon, 5d." 
 
 " For a salmon and a half, 13d." 
 
 "For one salmon, bought of Thomas, 5d." 
 
 "For one quarter of a salmon, 12d." 
 
 Nor can these prices be considered contempt- 
 ible when compared with those of other articles 
 in the same account. 
 
 " For one quarter of beef, 2s. 6d." 
 
 " For 450 eggs, 18d." 
 
 " For one calf and a half, 2s. 3d." 
 
 " For one hen, Id."* 
 
 * The prices of other fish noticed in this MS= are •* One pickerel 
 [or small pike] 18d." a price out of all proportion to their present 
 value. " 300 herrings, 23d ; 5 sticks of eels, 2d. 8d. (a stick contained 
 25 eels) ; 6 gallons of oysters, 3s. 3d. ; 4 trouts, 7d. ; Vi white herring. 
 l|d. (the herrings above were probably salted) ; one cod fish, 5^d." 
 The price paid for lampreys seems Out of all proportion, acknow- 
 ledging even the high estimation in which it was then held; unless 
 the term " one lamprey," meant a dish, or, as it was called, " a 
 bake of lampreys." "2 lampreys, 3s.; one lamprey, 18d. ; one 
 lamprey. Is." &c. It is curious to observe fish, which we now 
 make no use of, mentioned in this MS. as an article of daily 
 consumption. " For one .gallon (lagena) of minnows, bought of 
 Mauntell, 13d. ;" " for minnows bought of Bukke, 19d." 
 
32 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 In 1330, at a feast given at Yale Eoyal, to 
 celebrate the entrance of Abbot Peter and his 
 Monks, on their new building ; among the cost 
 of viands we have "two salmon, 6s." 
 
 The earliest market prices of corn and provi- 
 sions at Chester begin in 1378, and in the course 
 of the following fifty years they fluctuated very 
 greatly. 
 
 " 1379. A bushell of wheat sold for 6d ; a gallon of 
 white wine for 4d. ; a fat goose for 2d ; a fat pig for Id." 
 
 '' 1412. By appointment of the Maior, wheat was 
 prised by two bakers and two citizens, at 3s. 6d. per 
 quarter, so that if 4 bushels, as at that time it is thought 
 they had, that was but lOd. at our old bushell, that is, 
 about 3d. our new bushell. 
 
 " 1437. Wheat sold for 7d. a bushell, being a very 
 dear rate according to that time ; so that the poore in 
 Chester and elsewhere, made their bread of peasen 
 vetches and fearn roots." 
 
 " 1508. A plentiful year of corn ; an old bushell of 
 wheat 10."* 
 
 An instance of uncertain fluctuation in price 
 occurs in 1586, when on the 6th May wheat was 
 sold for 24s. the old bushel, Eye for 18s. Barley 
 14s. ; and the 2nd Sept. of the same year Wheat 
 for 8s., Eye 6s., Barley 4s. t 
 
 Adam Smith calculates that in 1341, being 
 the 16th year of the reign of Edward III., lOd. 
 
 * King's Vale Royal. Book ii, 30 et seq. t Ibid, Book ii, 21. 
 
OF A SALMON. 33 
 
 was a reasonable price for a bushel of wheat, 
 and adds — 
 
 *' Tenpence contained about half an ounce of silver, 
 town weight, and was nearly equal to half-a-crown of 
 our money. Four ounces of silver therefore, equal to 
 six shilUngs and eightpence of the money of those 
 times, and to near twenty shillings of that of the 
 present, must have been reckoned a moderate price of 
 the quarter of eight bushels."* 
 
 As a guide to the estimation in which salmon 
 was held at a somewhat later date, we may, for 
 the early part of the 16th Century recur to the 
 Houshold Book of Henry the 8th, for money 
 paid " in rewarde " to persons bringing presents 
 of fish, fruit, &c. Some of these rewards were 
 probably regulated in their amount by reference 
 to the persons sending as well as to the present 
 sent ; but it is observable that in the . case of 
 the salmon noticed, the reward is paid to persons 
 of no note. 
 
 " It'm the X daye (December) paid to Master King- 
 ston's s'v'nt, in rewarde for bringing a present of bake 
 lampreys to the Kings grace, v. s. 
 
 It'm the iij daye (March) paid to a s'v'nt of the 
 Abbot of Gloucd, in rewarde for bringing ij bake 
 lampreys, v. s. 
 
 " It'm the same daye paid to men of Stanes, in 
 
 * ' Smith's Wealth of Nations ' Book 1st, chap. xi. It seems 
 that the quarter of 8 bushels was uot accepted at Chester. 
 
34 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 rewarde for bringing a fresshe salmon to the Blings 
 Grace, xx s. 
 
 "It'm the XX day (July) paid to a s'v'nt of Master 
 Treasurer's in rewarde for bringing carpes and bremes 
 to the Kings grace at Oking. iiij s. viij d. 
 
 "It'm the same day (28 June, 1631) paid to a 
 servant of the Mayor in London, in rewarde for 
 bringing of a sturgeon to the King's grace at Eltham. 
 
 XXX s. 
 
 '' It'm, the xii day October, payde to a servante of 
 my Lord Wardeyne's in rewarde for bringing of a 
 purpesse and carps to calys. x. s. 
 
 *' It'm, to a servant of Master Gamyge for bringing 
 of a Red dere to the King's grace, xx s. 
 
 '' It'm payd to my Lady Bolstrode's s'v'nt in reward 
 for bringing A present of Apulles. xx d. 
 
 " It'm, pade to a s'v'nt of the Prior of Lanthony, for 
 bringing carpes to the King's grace. 
 
 " It'm the same daye paide by the King's comaund*- 
 to Michell Pylleson, that gave an Angle redde unto the 
 Kyng's grace at Grafton, xv s. 
 
 "Paid to a s'rv'nt of Byrches in reward for bringing 
 a present of peches to the King, iiij s. viij d. 
 
 How far we can trust any of these items, as 
 being fair indications of value received, rather 
 than of the King's caprice, and his estimation of 
 the parties gratified, we are led to doubt when we 
 notice such items as the following : — 
 
 " It'm the xviij daye, to Edmonde the foteman, for 
 so moche by him gyyn in reward at Asshrige to one 
 that made the dogges to draw water iiij s. viij d. 
 
OF A SALMON. 35 
 
 *' It'm the ij day (June, 1532) to one Dompier Peter 
 Tremesin, that did ryde ij horses at ones, by way of 
 reward C crowns" '(One hundred crowns or £24 6s. 8d. 
 of that time.) 
 
 '^ It'm the iij daye pade to one Davy w* a slyt nose, 
 by way of rewarde, x s. 
 
 By an indenture dated the 6th September in 
 the 4ih year of Henry the eighth (1509) the then 
 abbot of Chester, John Bifchenshaw, authorised 
 Kichard Grosvenor 
 
 " to make and attach a weyre or fish yard in the water 
 of Dee, upon the soyle and ground of his convent, and 
 also to make a Httle howse on the sayd ground, for the 
 safe keeping of the fish and netts of the said Richard, 
 &c. together with all the tenth of fish that shall happen 
 to be taken in the said fish yard and weyre, except of 
 Pike, Tench, and Breame, for the annual rent of 25 
 shillings ; that is, to witt, for the sayd attachment and 
 house, 20d ; and for the sayd Teythe fish, 22s."* 
 
 In the reign of Edward the sixth, the rights 
 of the crown (derived from the Prince of Wales 
 as Earl of Chester) to the Dee Mills, and the 
 Fishery attached were surrendered by the Eang 
 to the Cotton family, in exchange for estates in 
 Lincolnshire, and were purchased of that family 
 in 1587 by T. Gamul, subject to a reserved, 
 rent of £100 a year, (subsequently redeemed) 
 from whose descendants they passed, by purchase, 
 to the present proprietors. 
 
 * Harleian MSS, 2022. 
 F 
 
36 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Early in the reign of James the first, there 
 was a very angry contest between some of the 
 Citizens of Chester, and others representing the 
 rights of the Dee Mills, and the weirs at Chester 
 and Eaton, as well as an obstruction at Holt 
 Bridge. A commission called the ''Commission 
 of Sewers," held sittings at Chester, Holt, Flint, 
 and Wrexham, respecting the legality of these 
 obstructions, and the damage they did to the 
 river, and consequently to the commerce of the 
 neighbourhood. The proceedings of this com- 
 mission were characterized by a very violent 
 partial spirit of self-interest, and became divided 
 into two parties, the one side headed by the 
 Gamulls, who owned the Dee Mills, and had 
 attempted to coerce the citizens into grinding all 
 their corn at these mills, and the other by Sir I. 
 Trevor and a party in Wales, who were said to 
 be influenced by their holding mills on the 
 Flintshire shore, to desire the destruction of 
 those at Chester. A protest addressed to the 
 Lord Treasurer, shews that this latter party 
 proceeded so violently and unconstitutionally, 
 that fears were entertained of a popular tumult 
 and collision between the people and the Welsh, 
 which might lead to fatal consequences, and 
 renew animosities of ancient date.* 
 
 * Harleian MSS. 
 
OF A SALMON. 37 
 
 These contests were put an end to in 1639 by 
 the Lords Chief Justices declaring to the Lords 
 of the Privy Council their opinion, that the 
 authority of the Commission of Sewers did not 
 extend to such ancient mills and causeways as 
 existed prior to the reign of Edward the First. 
 The Mills and Causeway were again attacked in 
 the time of the Commonwealth, (probably because 
 the GamuUs were distinguished Eoyalists) ; and 
 an order was made in the year 1645 to demolish 
 the Mills, and build new ones on the Koodee, 
 but it was never acted upon ; nor from that time 
 until very recently, has the question of altering 
 the Causeway ever been mooted. 
 
 We have no mention made of any rights of 
 fishing in the Dee at Chester, either as stalls or 
 otherwise, after the Keformation, with the excep- 
 tion of the Cage, which yet exists, and which 
 passed with the Dee Mills, to the Cottons, in the 
 reign of Edward the 6th ; and has appeared 
 ever since to accompany the demise of that 
 property. It is now leased by Mr. Edward 
 Topham, who re-lets it. 
 
 In 1693 a London Company established a 
 salmon fishery at Eaton, by lease from the 
 Grosvenor family ; but the Eaton Weir is now 
 pulled dovvn, and the Dee (with the exception 
 of the Cage at Chester) is a free river, subject 
 
38 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 only to the laws of the country, as regards the 
 taking of salmon in certain seasons, with nets of 
 a certain construction. 
 
 By an act passed in the reign of George I. 
 for the better preservation of the salmon through- 
 out the kingdom, the Dee was thought of suiSficient 
 importance to be among the number of those 
 rivers mentioned by name, to which the act was 
 intended specially to apply. A few years ago 
 the provisions of this act, and of others subse- 
 quently passed, had been so infringed, and the 
 salmon illegally destroyed to such an extent, that 
 an association was formed at Chester to enforce 
 the law, and make such improvements in the 
 river as might enable the fish more easily to 
 ascend and breed in their favourite haunts. An 
 increasing abundance of fish within the space of 
 two years gave testimony to the value of this 
 association ; and even the fishermen, who at first 
 bitterly opposed its operations, acknowledged its 
 utility, and lent their aid to its furtherance. Un- 
 fortunately, jealousies arose from various causes, 
 and the association having exceeded its means, 
 and crippled by want of unanimity, was, after 
 having been long principally supported by the 
 energy and exertions of the individual who origi- 
 nated it, obliged to be broken up. 
 
 The association was re-organised in 1 852 ; its 
 
OF A SALMON. 39 
 
 committee being composed chiefly of the same 
 persons; and having the experience of former 
 failure, with full cognizance of the causes to 
 guide them, will, it is to be hoped, be enabled to 
 prosecute the proper and lawful preservation of 
 the River Dee Fishery, with better success. 
 
Ci&ajittr i3I3E. 
 
 I^IP^O return to our native of the Dee, and 
 pursue what may he deemed, perhaps, 
 a monotonous hiography. 
 
 We will resume his narrative at a later 
 period of his existence : we will suppose that 
 his first sojourn in salt water has long heen 
 over — that he has returned to the Dee more 
 than once, and escaping all perils which 
 awaited him hy the way, he has again and 
 again been successful in his essay to reach the 
 ocean. We will even, if you please, stretch our 
 elastic imagination so far as to believe, if possible, 
 that he has been taken in a stake net, on the 
 estuary, and has been hastily released by the 
 Flintshire or Cheshire owner, from fear of the 
 consequences ! or that enclosed in the net of a 
 Cheshire fisherman his captor has magnanim- 
 ously returned him to the river, as being within 
 
42 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the statute length of eighteen inches ! We will 
 strive to yield to the hypothesis, that any such 
 very possible mischance may have befallen him, 
 as to fall into such hands, and yet be again set 
 free, and allowed under the protection of the law, 
 to increase in substance, until we now behold 
 him, in the fifth year of his existence, a noble 
 salmon, of some twelve or fourteen pounds 
 weight ; returning to his native river, intent upon • 
 visiting the romantic source of the Dee. 
 
 But, in thus resuming the story of his life, 
 we find it difficult to let him speak for himself. 
 Not that he cannot tell us a great deal ; — far fi-om 
 it — only that he cannot tell us half enough ! 
 What does he wot of the daily dangers of his 
 Deelj life ? If he but knew one half of the 
 nets and pitfalls — the thousand and one snares 
 set for his destruction — the keen, avaricious gaze 
 with which he will be waited for at every bend of 
 the river, watched over every weir, hunted into 
 every pool, or speared at in every shallow — would 
 he, despite his strong instinct and irresistible 
 impulse to return, — would he ever again venture 
 to the scenes of his early youth? 
 
 Alas, poor Salmo, such is thy fate ! The instinct 
 and impulse are stronger even than the love 
 of life. Eeturn thou must, again and again, — 
 until thy doom is accomplished ; whether taken 
 
OF A SALMON. 43 
 
 fairly in open day by the lawful two and a half 
 inch mesh, or dragged out furtively on a moon- 
 light morning by some poaching scoundrel with a 
 net that would take a gudgeon ; whether submit- 
 ting reluctantly, after a long and gallant strug- 
 gle, to the skill and science of an experienced 
 flyfisher ; or speared, in some remote glen, in the 
 dead of night by the blaze of torchlight : still 
 thy doom at last must come; thou art not "food 
 for fishes ! " 
 
 But so it is: as with man, so with the salmon. 
 Futurity is veiled from his view; nor wots he 
 even one tithe of the dangers already escaped, 
 far less those that await him. We will, therefore, 
 accompany our salmon, in the fifth year of his 
 migration, over some part of his course, ere we 
 again take leave of him. 
 
 And here we are compelled to plead a 
 "hiatus." We know not where our native 
 of the Dee has spent his last few months. 
 That he has been laving his glittering sides 
 in the briny waters of the sea, feeding vora- 
 ciously on the abundance of its more diminutive 
 inhabitants, and making marvellous progress 
 in growth and weight, we know; but very little 
 else, as yet, we do know; except that we can 
 tell certain parts of the deep which, most 
 assuredly, he has not visited. He has never 
 
 G 
 
44 THE ADVENTURES ^ 
 
 been in the great depths of the ocean ; his 
 organization would not allow it ; it would be 
 as impossible for him to exist there as it would 
 be for man to breathe in the more exalted heights 
 of ether. Consequently, his favourite haunts 
 are all coastwise; and if he ever crosses the 
 ocean at all, it must be within a certain depth, 
 and probably in great haste. But whether he 
 has been a trip to Norway, a short visit to the 
 Mediterranean, or a more daring excursion to 
 America, he is now returning to the Dee ; not 
 direct from the vast expanses of the Atlantic, 
 nor even from the midway course of the Irish 
 Sea, but rolling over the more shallow banks of 
 the neighbouring coast ; either disporting him- 
 self along the Flintshire shore, taking a look at 
 the bathers at Khyl, just startled by a railway 
 train rushing over his head, as he is dosing at 
 the mouth of the Foryd ; or else, keeping close 
 to the opposite coast, he has looked into every 
 bay and inlet in Lancashire ; and is able to tell 
 Ptolemy, that he left out of his boasted map, the 
 mouth of one great river that flows between the 
 Dee and the Eibble ! 
 
 Pray let us pay him but ordinary politeness ; 
 let us meet him at the threshold; welcome him 
 at the Point of Ayr ; bow him up the estuary, 
 and see him safe over the causeway. 
 
OF A SALMON. 45 
 
 The Chester Causeway ! What a wonderful 
 thing it is that a salmon should ever leap the 
 Causeway ? 
 
 " Wonderful ? Why ? what's the causeway to 
 a salmon ? Is it not their -nature to leap ? 
 Besides, look at Chester Causeway, what is it 
 after all ? Why a trout could jump it easy, let 
 alone a 'salmo salar.'" 
 
 Wait a moment, my good sir: "bide a wee," 
 as our neighbours say. In the meantime we 
 will not talk just now about the Chester Cause- 
 way; but remember that we are going to give 
 our friend the meeting at the point of Ayr. 
 He is making his way along the wide estuary, 
 intending, no doubt, to call at Parkgate or Flint 
 by the way. But he is too late this tide : the 
 ebb is far advanced, and the receding waters 
 warn him of sundry spreading sandbanks which 
 increase rapidly in extent^ and he very wisely 
 wends his way into the secure deeps of Dawpool, 
 there to repose till the morrow. 
 
 While he lies there let us take a look at 
 this wide waste of sands, stretching across for 
 some three or four miles between that long 
 low line of white houses, videlicet, Parkgate ; and 
 the grey crumbling mass of masonry, scarcely 
 distinguishable in the distancse from the green 
 
46 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 hills which rise behind it, hut which we know to 
 be Flint Castle, on the other. 
 
 The sands are yet w^et with the receding 
 tide, and reflect the rays of the setting sun too 
 powerfully to aMow us to look steadfastly at 
 them, or to distinguish them from the water; 
 indeed, but for those dots moving along about 
 two miles off", with their reflected dots moving 
 under them, — which might be beetles, but which 
 we know to be some of the fairest of their sex, 
 engaged in the pursuit of shrimping, — those 
 shallow waters might conceal the illimitable 
 depths of ocean : but they too (the shoals, not 
 the ladies) will soon be dry, and then we shall 
 be able to examine^ the bed of the river more 
 deliberately. And first, what are those long 
 dark streaks, stretching from the very beach, — 
 where the nurses are sitting under parasols, and 
 the children are picLiing up pebbles — down into 
 that narrow devious thread of water, which 
 wanders from side to side of the desert-like 
 mazy estuary, and betrays the current of the 
 river ? See there are more of them further on ! 
 Some from the opposite side, too, coming across 
 as though to meet them ! Yet again another, 
 and another ! and another ! as far as the eye can 
 reach ; ragged bl^R^k lines, with here and there 
 a pole sticking tip, and a bush on the top of it. 
 
OF A SALMON. 47 
 
 Those, oh, ingenuous reader! are part of the 
 perils that await our friend, when the rising tide 
 tempts him to quit Dawpool, in the early grey of 
 morning. They are stake nets, fixed hy upright 
 poles in the sandbanks, and ready to entangle in 
 their wide spreading embrace, all that the current 
 of the advancing or receding tide shall bring 
 into them. They are pre-eminently illegal, being 
 condemned by two or three particular acts of 
 parliament, and having here in this river Dee, 
 one special act levelled -at them, called the 
 " Point of Ayr Act." 
 
 "Do they destroy the salmon ? " 
 
 Let us ask that weather-beaten old fellow, 
 with a purple wizened face, a red nose, and a 
 jacket that once was blue, but whose darns and 
 patches of various hues now all assimilate pretty 
 much to the tone of the mud on the bottom of 
 that up-turned cobble boat on which he is seated. 
 
 " Salmon Sir ! " taking his short black pipe 
 from his lips, and rejoicing the thirsty shore with 
 i\iG wmdl sequitur. *' Salmon? Lord, Sir, no 
 such luck I Besides, you see, it ai'nt lawful : we 
 never takes no salmon in the Dee, not with 
 meshes like them ; flukes and sprats, you see, 
 and sometimes a trifle o' herrings. Nothin else 
 to talk on." 
 
 "Well, but my good friend, supposing a 
 
48 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 salmon were to get into tliose meshes ? For T 
 suppose you don't warn them off ; do you ? 
 
 " Bless your heart, sir ! don't you believe all 
 you hears ; them Chester fishermen as comes 
 down here a layin hinformations, and a swearing 
 aginhuz; theyllsay hanny thin. They're a pack 
 of the lyingest rascally poachers as ever was! 
 Ony let me an another or two ketch'em down here 
 again, on hanny sich dirty arrands ! " 
 
 The consequences left to the imagination, the 
 pause filled up with another tremendous squirt 
 and the pipe resumed ; to which we will leave 
 him. 
 
 " Well, hut I should like to know what the 
 Chester fishermen do say ? " 
 
 " Why they do say, that, of course, these stake 
 nets are about the most destructive engines the 
 salmon have to encounter. That they themselves 
 have not a chance of getting any fish, so long 
 as they are permitted to exist; they say, that the 
 people ' down the river' kill every man jack of 
 them, and are, moreover, (returning the com- 
 pliment of our friend above,) ' a pack of, &c., 
 &c.,' leaving you, at the same time, to infer that 
 they themselves are a family of the most upright, 
 conscientious, irreproachable fishermen that have 
 ever existed since the days of St. Peter. That 
 they would not take a salmon under size, nor 
 
OF A SALMON. 49 
 
 cast a net in the fence months, " no ! not if 
 they was go to the workhouse first ! " 
 
 You may believe all, or one half, or one 
 quarter of all that, if you like ; but seeing 
 that after many years' deliberation, the Legisla- 
 ture, from the days of the Edwards, has thought 
 these stake nets so destructive as to justify more 
 stringent measures against them, with a view to 
 prevent the breed of salmon from being entirely 
 destroyed, and has since seen no cause to change 
 its opinion ; seeing, also, that a salmon is not likely 
 to escape a net simply because its meshes are 
 illegal ; and that once taken, dead fish tell no 
 tales, (at least not often) we mu^t come, I think, 
 to the conclusion, that salmon are taken by 
 these stake nets, and when taken, fetch as high 
 a price in the market as unsmuggled fish do. 
 
 " Then why are they allowed to continue? are 
 not the laws strong enough ? " 
 
 " Oh, abundantly strong enough, if they were 
 put in force ; but, as in everything else, what is 
 everybody's business is nobody's business, and 
 so they have never or rarely been acted up to. 
 Let us hope they may ; for to tell you the truth 
 I consider our friend's chance a poor one of 
 running that gauntlet of stake nets harmless; 
 and if he has fifty fellow companions with him 
 in Dawpool to-night — we may wait a long day 
 
50 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 to welcome any ten of them alive at Dee Bridge 
 to-morrow." 
 
 But now we will suppose, if you please, that 
 our salmon has recruited his strength by a 
 night's repose in Dawpool, and that you have 
 passed quite as refreshing a one at the Eoyal 
 Hotel at Chester — and have no objection to 
 reply to the call of the ' boots/ as he pushes a 
 candle inside your room door, at 3 o'clock a.m. ; 
 that you accordingly rouse up to a cup of coffee, 
 and are off by the early Holyhead train to 
 Queen's Ferry, some seven miles down the river. 
 Day breaks as you arrive at the station : we 
 take our way to the river side there to cross by 
 the Ferry boat (scot free, 'tis a royal ferry) with 
 the intention of walking along the embankment 
 back to Chester to a regular good Scotch break- 
 fast. 
 
 'Tis a beautiful April morning. A strong 
 south-west breeze comes steadily up the river, 
 bringing along the flood-tide the Flint and 
 Bagillt boats, with their cargoes of fish and 
 market women, curling the surface of the river 
 with a fine wavy ripple, that makes you dream 
 of throwing a fly upon some Irish river. 'Tis 
 of no use here ; the salmon are never known to 
 rise until they have reached the streams far 
 above Chester.' 
 
OF A SALMON. 51 
 
 How different the river here, to what we saw 
 it last evening some six miles lower down ! No 
 longer a wide shallow .estuary some miles in 
 breadth, making no account of a mile's differ- 
 ence or so, here and there ; but confined between 
 two high, artificial, unpicturesquely straight 
 banks, with a uninteresting Dutch-looking chan- 
 nel — of about a breadth across which you 
 suspect you might chuck a half-crown or a penny 
 piece ; if you were to try, perhaps you would 
 find yourself mistaken. 
 
 And our friend Salmo ; is he up and stirring- 
 yet ? I should not wonder. But take your 
 stand, now that we have at length arrived at a 
 bend in the straight canal of a river : look down 
 towards Flint ; your eye can see for nearly three 
 miles along a reach as straight as the road 
 between Paris and Dijon: and up the other way 
 you can look far enough to want a telescope. 
 What do we notice ? A number of artificial 
 jettys, formed of loose quarried stones, running 
 out into the current of the river, on each side, 
 at regular intervals of some hundred yards apart. 
 Those are the precious expedient of some defunct 
 engineer (peace be to his manes!) to deepen the 
 bed of the river ; and, as you see, the sole result 
 has been to arrest the sand both ways, so that 
 each shore describes a series of bays from point 
 
 H 
 
52 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 to point between the jettys. But is that all ? 
 Ah! there's a boat shooting out from one of 
 those piers ; lower down another, farther still 
 another ; and up the river too : and each boat 
 pays off its stern, as it skims along, a heap of 
 net, a line attached to which is left in the hands 
 of a fisherman ashore, while the advancing boat 
 drops into the water a large semicircle of dancing 
 corks, enclosing the entire breadth of the river 
 from point to point, which the boat soon reaches : 
 the rower jumps ashore and hastily assists his 
 fellow in hauling in the net ; it takes them . a 
 good fifteen minutes ere they get the wide semi- 
 circle diminished to the compass of a moderate 
 sized table cloth ; then gingerly and cautiously 
 they draw the remaining ' purse ' ashore, anxi- 
 ously looking for the troubled waters — the 
 indignant splash, which would betray the pre- 
 sence of a worthy captive ; but no ! our salmon 
 is not there this time. We will leave them to 
 prepare their net again, and walk on towards 
 Chester. 
 
 This, now, is legal fishing ; and very hard 
 work it is. These are legal nets, of- two and a 
 half inch mesh, and some two hundred yards 
 long. They cannot, you see — what with rowing, 
 hauling in, preparing their nets afresh, and free- 
 ing them from thorns and rubbish — make a cast 
 
OF A SALMON. 53 
 
 above once in three-quarters of an hour; and 
 often throw their nets from daylight till sunset, 
 and never see a fish. But, then, that is because 
 the fish are not so plentiful as they ought to be ; 
 and can you wonder ? You will not find a 
 hundred yards of the river, in your seven miles 
 walk this morning, that is not drawn once, some- 
 times more than once, every tide. In fact, these 
 nets sweej) the whole course of the river, from 
 Connah's Quay up to Chester; and fortunate 
 will pur friend Salmo be if he escapes them all. 
 
 *' Do these men never fish with illegal nets ? " 
 
 '' Well, Buckley, the river constable, says they 
 do, when they are sure there is nq one on the look 
 out : but he, thei/ say, is a very prejudiced 
 person ; and not at all to be trusted. After all, 
 they are a very hardy, industrious set of men ; 
 sadly wanting in prudence, living jovially when 
 the take is good, and starving under a reverse." 
 
 " So now, friend sceptic — who, some few pages 
 back, was unwilling to allow any sporting salmon 
 making more than a sporting leap of Chester 
 Causeway — do you still dispute the wonder that 
 a salmon ever does jump it ; in fact, that he ever 
 gets there to try?" 
 
 " But, stop ; he is not quite there yet. Here he 
 comes though!" 
 
 It is scarce twelve hours since he left Daw- 
 
54 THE ADVENTUIIES 
 
 pool, and he is up with the morning's tide. He 
 has not an idea of the dangers he has escaped 
 by the way. The very meshes of the net may 
 have touched his sides, and startled him into an 
 impetuous rush, which luckily was on the right 
 side of the fence, or he had now been on his 
 way to Chester Market. But he is all uncon- 
 scious ; the straight bare channel, with its even 
 sandy bottom and unsheltered course, has had 
 no charms to delay him ; so he has come right 
 away, through a host of dangers ; over some stake 
 nets, under or just outside others, until the 
 shady heights of Curzon Park tempted him to 
 linger awhile. 
 
 And now he has entered on, and is un- 
 wittingly pausing in the most dangerous part 
 of his career. He has not been in so great 
 peril since he left the ocean, as awaits him in the 
 last few hundred yards below the Causeway. 
 
 Look at the pool below the old Chester Bridge; 
 once forming part of what was called the. 
 "Kynge's Pole," and reserved as a royal domain. 
 Net after net is thrown; no sooner has one 
 boat made a cast than another follows ; it seems 
 hardly possible the salmon should ever escape 
 them, and yet they do, and by scores, as you will 
 find if you take a trip up to Overton, and visit 
 the Weir at Erbistock. And our special friend, 
 
OF A SALMON. 65 
 
 whom we are so anxious to introduce to a quiet 
 haven above the Causeway, is lying in a shel- 
 tered hole, luckily just a couple of feet below 
 the sweep of the nets, apparently deliberating 
 which portal to take of the many that invite 
 him. 
 
 " You know the Old Chester Bridge ? " 
 " No ! Then just let me tell you, you must not 
 imagine a handsome structure, thrown from 
 shore to shore in one bold arch, like its modern 
 prototype, nor yet a regular design, the work of 
 a single architect. Picturesque and irregular, 
 it bears evidence of the changes which different 
 eras, for many centuries past, have wrought in its 
 fabric, and of the still remaining character which 
 originally distinguished it. The tower which 
 guarded its approach on the Welsh side is gone ; 
 but the site has not been altogether abandoned 
 by more modern builders, and the arches of the 
 bridge (of a style belonging to the time of the 
 Eclwards) spring from among buildings which 
 appear still to form part of, though no longer 
 upon it. These arches are all of them irregular 
 in size and shape ; and on arriving at the Chester 
 side, we find the Dee Mills yet, as of old, occu- 
 pying the last two arches of the bridge, under 
 which the principal current of the river flows, 
 and which, after having served the purpose of the 
 
56 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 miller, rushes out of three low vomitories to unite 
 with the parent stream below. Up these arches 
 many a salmon looks, and undeterred by the dark 
 subterranean aspect of the path, or the awful 
 hubbub and clatter of the wheels — unconscious 
 of that dangerous illegal net hanging close 
 to the mill-wheel waiting to catch him as he 
 falls back after a mad impotent leap in the 
 dark abyss — many a poor salmon essays that 
 Styx-like passage, ^nd some they even say 
 successfully." 
 
 But our friend essays it not. He is about to 
 quit his resting place and betake himself to the 
 safer stream which flows unimpeded through the 
 centre arch of the bridge. And fortunately for 
 him there is plenty of water in the river ; for here 
 he comes, steadily and boldly up the centre of 
 the stream : he has passed the bridge ; and now he 
 is trespassing on private property ! 
 
 He knows it not — he is quite ignorant that by 
 going into that pool he has given himself avvay ! 
 disposed of all right and title to his own fish 
 and blood — forfeited his freedom, and belongs 
 absolutely, body and roe, to Mr. Topham, his 
 heirs or assigns ! and that if any other man 
 presume to take him out of that pool, the only 
 food he would afford, would be food for the 
 lawyers. 
 
OF A SALMON. 57 
 
 Then we shall not see poor Salmo safe after 
 all ! He has got into the cage ! 
 
 Not into the cage exactly, but into the pool 
 belonging to it ; and out of that pool there is 
 sometimes only one way, — that is, into the cage 
 itself; sometimes there are two; never more than 
 three. To day, as the river is full, and the 
 lawful sluice, (only eighteen inches wide), not 
 unlawfully dammed up, he has his choice of the 
 three. He can either make his way through the 
 said sluice on the one hand, and by a vigorous 
 effort, such as no one unacquainted with the 
 powerful rush of a salmon could believe possible, 
 he can force his way through thre half open flood 
 gates, and undeterred by any such fears as 
 affected Sancho Panza, he can pass under the 
 very wheels of the fulling mill into the river 
 above. Or he can leave both sluice and cage to 
 his right, and urging his way between the two 
 piers up the current of water which foams be- 
 tween them, he may finally make the only safe 
 leap that is left him. Or, he may yield to the 
 most inviting and probable theory " in medio 
 tutissimus" and tempted by the greater body of 
 water which with that object is generally allowed 
 to pass through the cage itself, he may venture 
 under the grating of that little building erected 
 
58 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 on the middle pier, and be to-morrow on the 
 table of some Chester alderman ! 
 
 Here for a while we will leave him, trusting 
 that Mr. E. Topham and his men will not cast 
 a net in the pool till he has decided which of the 
 three courses he will take. 
 
Ci&apter 3E3F. 
 
 )E have now an acknowledgment to make 
 
 and a secret to tell respecting our hero, who 
 is still waiting below Chester Causeway, which 
 may fully account for the length of time he has 
 been detained there, instead of rushing headlong 
 up the torrent, as perhaps he would have done a 
 year or two ago. We trust we shall not be taxed 
 with indiscretion in having so long kept secret, 
 what we well knew must sooner or later be 
 published, or with want of tact and ' s avoir fair e 
 in our manner of declaring it. The fact is, we 
 were reluctant to run the risk of forfeiting some 
 degree of that interest which we flattered our- 
 selves our hero might have obtained during the 
 preceding chapters, in the breasts of that fair 
 portion of our readers to whom, as it were, we 
 instinctively address ourselves ; and we hesitated 
 to announce the change which a few short 
 
 I 
 
00 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 months had made in the position and habits of 
 the gentleman alhided to. 
 
 To be brief — he is no longer a bachelor! 
 As poor Jenks said, ' he is another's ! ' Incon- 
 venient, however, as may be the avowal, we 
 find that we really cannot get along any farther 
 without making it, and are therefore obliged to 
 acknowledge the engagement he has entered into, 
 at the risk of having our tale laid aside, as 
 already too long ! 
 
 Look at him now : still in the ' Kynge's Pole,' 
 hesitating between one passage and another, as 
 was not his former wont, and recognize the cause 
 in that fair form around which he so constantly 
 hovers, ready it would seem to share her fate, 
 whatever it may be, reconnoitring every portion 
 of the contemplated leap with an anxious care, 
 which contrasts strangely with the rash temerity 
 of his early years ; evidently calculating, not his 
 own powers for the assault, but hers, to whose 
 side he ever again returns from each enquiring 
 sally. 
 
 Tis well that w^hat we see so distinctly, the 
 water hides from other eyes, however eager ! 
 Two such prizes as himself and his beautiful 
 mate are seldom to be taken with one sweep of 
 the net ! 
 
 Well, we are in the humour to be confidential. 
 
OF A SALMON. 61 
 
 SO we may as well tell the whole truth. A word 
 in your ear about this fair companion ! 
 
 ^i i^ * * * ^ * j I 
 
 " Is it possible ! — you don't say so ! " 
 
 " Quite true, I assure' you, my dear madam ! " 
 
 ^ 4^ * * * ^ ^ 
 
 *' And, pray, how long may she be likely — to — 
 a-hem ! — to continue in that interesting state ? " 
 
 " Why, that is impossible exactly to say, 
 Madam; these things, as -you must be aware, 
 are in all cases somewhat uncertain. Mister 
 Salmo, I believe, has some thoughts of reaching 
 a certain shallow gravelly bed in the river near 
 Corwen, over which he disported himself in his 
 early days, and to which reference was made in 
 our opening chapter. Mistress Salmo is equally 
 anxious to arrive there ; but you may observe, 
 my dear Madam, a certain enhonfoint rotundity 
 of contour about her figure, which however 
 graceful, bespeaks a frame less equal to long 
 continued and powerful exertion than that of her 
 more active partner, and affords quite sufficient 
 cause for that amiable anxiety on his part, 
 which we have both been admiring." 
 
 But look ! there are symptoms of a decided 
 move at last ! Yes, they have determined on 
 their course, and our friend's careful survey and 
 
62 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 innate sagacity have decided him on the right 
 one. He goes first, with a steady hut vigorous 
 efibrt forcing his way up the very centre of the 
 turbulent stream that rushes between the two 
 piers. He is right under the cataract! A 
 moment's pause — a poising of his elegant frame 
 at the very bottom of the pool beneath the fall — 
 and then, suddenly, a quivering powerful stroke 
 from his expanded tail, — and that man fishing 
 on the bank of the river sees him as well as our- 
 selves, sees him, however, only for a moment — 
 a dark form amid the white flakes of the water- 
 fall — and he is again lost to his view in the quiet 
 deep water above the causeway, where he pauses 
 to take breath, and wait for his expected partner. 
 
 She is not long following liim. Profiting by 
 his. experience, she essays the same passage, and 
 to all appearance — notwithstanding her more 
 weighty figure — with equal power. The dark 
 green back of a salmon is again seen for a 
 moment, suspended as it were, among the glit- 
 tering spray, and she is with her mate, having 
 overcome one more peril on the way to Corwen. 
 
 Well may they exhilarate in a sense of con- 
 scious security ! They may now follow the 
 devious windings of the tranquil river for miles 
 above Chester Causeway aud encounter neither 
 snare or obstacle : neither net nor weir : neither 
 
OF A SALMON. 63 
 
 the open attack of the fisherman nor the mid- 
 night pursuit of the poacher are to be feared in 
 this part of the river; its bed and its banks 
 being so deep and inaccessible, as to afford ample 
 protection against any art, save that of the honest 
 angler. 
 
 Is it in joyous consciousness and triumph, 
 then, that Salmo and his fair companion occa- 
 sionally make such sudden and vigorous leaps 
 from the water ? springing sometimes their 
 whole length out of the -river, and alighting 
 again with a splash that alarms all the small fry 
 in the neighbourhood ! Partly, perhaps, it may 
 be attributed to the exhilaration produced by a 
 return to fresh water, and the reminiscences 
 thereby awakened ; but there is also a physical 
 cause for these repeated essays.* They are 
 troubled by numbers of insects adhering to their 
 otherwise glittering scales — which have attacked 
 them during their sojourn in salt water — and to 
 which icthyologists have given a name, which 
 politeness prevents our repeating ! Should their 
 persecutions be as annoying to the salmon as 
 those of their synonyms are supposed to be to 
 
 * The writer once found a very fine salmon, laying 
 dead in the bottom of a boat, moored just above the 
 Causeway ; — having no doubt fallen into it after making 
 one of these somersaults. 
 
64 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the human race, we cannot wonder that our 
 friends are so anxious to shake off their acquaint- 
 ance. And this they will probably succeed in 
 doing before they are far past the princely do- 
 main of Eaton. 
 
 It would be far too tedious a task to follow 
 them through all their long and devious journey ; 
 we will, therefore, precede them a few miles, 
 leaving them to follow the tortuous course of the 
 winding river, while we take a hasty look at the 
 principal difficulties which still intervene between 
 themselves and their ultimate destination. 
 
 The first occurs immediately above Overton 
 Bridge, in Flintshire — by land, a distance of 
 fifteen miles from Chester ; but by the river "by r 
 lady ! " more likely sixty. 
 
 And here, let us observe, how entirely the 
 character of the river has again changed, since 
 we left it at Chester. No longer a deep channel 
 confined between two equal banks, flowing evenly 
 and gently on with a current so slow and equable 
 that the minute hand of St. Paul's clock might 
 almost be as easily detected in its progress ; on 
 the contrary, it has now become a series of 
 streams and pools, wandering from side to side 
 of its channel ; now fretting and chafing through 
 straitened rocky passages, or rippling gently 
 over a wide-spread gravel bed ; sometimes hurry- 
 
OF A SALMON. 05 
 
 ing in broken torrents, which glitter in the open 
 sunshine ; or anon lingering under the deep 
 shadows of an overhanging wood, and seeming 
 to delight in reflecting the mazy depths of foliage, 
 ore yet it glides onwards. 
 
 In short, it skills not attempting with pen and 
 ink to paint the beauties and varieties of a fly- 
 fishing river, suCh as the Dee has here become. 
 From hence, through the silent shadowy park of 
 Wynnstay — past the foaming rocky rapids of 
 Llangollen — along the course of that beautiful 
 valley, from the darkness of whose overhanging 
 cliffs has been derived the name of the river-''^ — 
 up to the very lake Tegid, from which it issues, 
 and through whose broad expanse of waters, by 
 a fabled license, it is supposed to find its way 
 unmingled, — the *^ Sacred Dee" presents a series 
 of beauties and charms, such as the ardent lover 
 and frequenter of romantic scenery may well 
 imagine ; which would indeed delight the artist 
 for months, but which wholly set at defiance the 
 pen of the writer. 
 
 The fly-fisher, if he were with us in reality, 
 instead of accompanying us imagination, would 
 we suspect be apt to run restive, and putting his 
 four joint rod together, would tell us very politely 
 
 * Dhu (pronounced Dee) black : Glyn-dwf-dhu, the 
 valley of black water." 
 
66 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 to go to, — hem ! — to visit our weirs and cages, &c., 
 by ourselves, as he found the streams here at 
 Overton far more attractive. In fact we ourselves 
 should perhaps find the temptation too powerful to 
 be easily resisted. But as this is only in imagina- 
 tion — and our reader is probably seated in a 
 railway carriage, on his way to the " Hand " at 
 Llangollen ; or better still, reclining in an easy 
 chair at the said "Hand," his heavy wading 
 boots thrown aside for slippers, luxuriating over 
 a cigar, after a long day spent in the river — he 
 may not object to take a look at the two or three 
 other parts of the river to which we have alluded. 
 
 Of these, the weir at Erbistock is perhaps the 
 most difficult and dangerous. It is not so much 
 the height of this weir as its slope, which makes 
 it so insurmountable to the fish ;. a salmon of 
 any size could easily leap it if it were perpen- 
 dicular; but its angle is so obtuse, and the 
 consequent length of the fall so great, while at 
 the same time its force is so tremendous, that it 
 is only after many essays any fish get over it ; 
 hundreds never do, as is proved by the num- 
 bers that swarm immediately beneath it, and 
 their comparative scarcity in the river above. 
 
 We will suppose, now, that it is a fine day in 
 August; there is some fresh in the river: we are 
 standing between the mill-stream at Erbistock and 
 
OF A SALMON. (37 
 
 the open river, on the flood-gate of the sluice 
 which admits the water to the water-wheel of the 
 "picturesque old mill at our back; the weir is 
 before us, stretching in an irregular segment of 
 a circle right across the bed of the river, and 
 terminating under the precipitous scaur on the 
 opposite side. You see the whole body of water 
 falls over the weir in a continued foaming 
 cataract; there is not a break in it; not a single 
 run of more quiet water, through which a fish 
 by vigorous effort might force his way. Jump 
 it they must, and jump the whole distance, or 
 fall short to be hurried back into the pool below. 
 Look at them jumping now ! those dark weasel- 
 like objects every moment springing out of the 
 white foam, and again falling into it unavailingly. 
 Those are all morts, or young salmon from half 
 a pound to two pounds weight. You may stand 
 by that weir, as we have done, with watch in 
 hand and count something like a hundred leaps in 
 every five minutes ; and as these fish are much 
 exhausted by the violent effort, as well/ perhaps, 
 as by the fall back again, it has been calculated 
 that the same fish does not leap again for some 
 minutes ; so that what we see in the five minutes 
 are all different fish. 
 
 There is only one way by which these small 
 fish can succeed in ascending, which is when the 
 
 K 
 
68 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 mill-wheel is stopped and the water is suffered to 
 escape by the sluices over which we are standing 
 — always supposing there is no illegal net 
 stretched across its mouth, converting it into a 
 kind of trap, which too often happens. If they 
 remain below, other dangers await them. 
 
 Do you see that man at the opposite side, a 
 little lower down the pool, with a thick clumsy 
 rod, by which he casts a line equally heavy and 
 coarse and draws it towards him ? At first you 
 would think he was very lawfully fly-fishing, and 
 would only wonder at his -ignorance and want of 
 skill, which could expect any fish to rise at a 
 fly so awkwardly cast, and alighting with such 
 a splash upon the water ! But your pity for liis 
 unartistic endeavours will be converted into 
 indignation, when you are told that he has no 
 such object in contemplation. Instead of a fly, 
 at the end of that line, he has only a small bullet, 
 above which are a dozen or so of naked hooks, at 
 equal distances, and he throws this line at random, 
 in the sole expectation that now and then it may 
 fall over an unfortunate fish, lay hold of some 
 part of his body — -when out he is dragged^ vi et 
 armis ! 
 
 Is it illegal ? and does he know it ? Oh, does 
 he not ! He knows it well enough ; but he cal- 
 culates that you and I are not informers; or that 
 
OF A SALMON. 69 
 
 he may make liis escape ere we could catch him ; 
 or that even if caught and pulled up before a 
 magistrate, he may still by some quip or quirk 
 of the law, evade three months' imprisonment; 
 at all events he runs the risk, and if you wait to 
 see the quantity of fish he will pull out, you 
 will acknowledge it is worth some risk to run.* 
 
 Then if the water were lower you would see 
 knots of ragged urchins, stripped of the little 
 breeches that belong to them, wading among the 
 shallow pools, and groping with their hands 
 under the stones for the unfortunate fish that 
 are still detained there; or visit the spot at 
 night, and you would find the torch and the 
 spear in full operation. In short, all means, but 
 especially the illegal ones, by which the poor 
 fish can be taken, are here put in force — and 
 your wonder is again, excited, that they are not 
 wholly exterminated. 
 
 The weir above this, at Llangollen, difiers from 
 it in being a perpendicular one, but equally 
 
 * We are happy to be able to state that these gross 
 practices, which were in full force some twelve months 
 ago, may now be spoken of in the past tense, as existing 
 no longer. The efforts ef the Association, ably sup- 
 ported by Mr. Peel's approval, and the exertions of Mr. 
 Saulsby and Mr. Warters, have put an end to such 
 wholesale poaching ; and the river is too well watched 
 and staked to allow of its being pursued vnth impunity. 
 
70 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 insurmountable, from its height, by any save 
 large fish; even these are frequently unable to 
 get over ; and an artificial run which was made 
 some years ago, was ineffective from want of 
 judgment in its construction. There is one spot 
 however, where a projecting rock collects a pool 
 of water, half way up, and thus affords a sort of 
 step in the ascent; and it is astonishing how 
 soon, after a few trials, the sagacity of the sal- 
 mon directs them to the spot : often when it is 
 attained they have not strength to keep their 
 footing (?) there, but are washed back from 
 sheer exhaustion ; sometimes they are able to 
 maintain their hold, and pause for another 
 spring, which generally places them in safety.* 
 
 There is now little to detain them save those 
 arts of poaching common to all parts of the 
 river ; the weir above being only ^ve feet high, 
 is just what a moderate hurdle would be to a 
 well-bred hunter , and the one at Llantysilio is 
 even lower than that. 
 
 Their principal danger now, is from the nets 
 of the coracle fishers. Two or three of these 
 
 * Plans have been made ^by Mr. Robertson the 
 engineer, to wbose able assistance tbe Association are 
 greatly indebted, to deepen and improve this pool, which 
 will probably be carried into effect before this issues 
 from the press. 
 

OF A SALMON. 71 
 
 men will start together, with their coracles on 
 their backs, in the dusk of evening or else long 
 before daylight, and walk six or seven miles up 
 the river — one of them setting night-lines as they 
 go — their pretext being the pursuit of fly-fishing, 
 which they accordingly resort to when the day is 
 far advanced ; in the mean time, with a coracle 
 on each side the river, they sweep most of the 
 long pools with nets of illegal mesh ; and if you 
 stumble upon them some time after seven or eight 
 o'clock in the morning, and ask them their suc- 
 cess — they have had none ! their coracles are 
 empty, and so are their panniers ! they can't tell, 
 "no indeed" what is the matter with the fish, 
 they won't rise at all ! but their companion is 
 off with the wet net wound hydropatJiically 
 round his body under his coat, and he or his 
 confederate has taken a good weight of fish to 
 the nearest market. If you bid them good 
 morning, and afterwards return and watch the 
 two that remain, with not less caution than you 
 would stalk a deer, you will see them now and 
 then lay down their harmless fly rods, and fur- 
 tively draw from the river, night-line after night- 
 line — r they follow the downward course of the 
 river — scarce a line, perhaps, coming to the bank 
 without some booty. 
 
 It does not come at all within the scope of our 
 
72 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 design to give a natural history of the salmon 
 from his birth to the extent of his possible 
 existence. Our only aim in these few pages has 
 been to paint the dangers which surround that 
 existence, more especially in the Eiver Dee, and 
 if possible to excite some degree of interest in 
 the better management and future preservation 
 of that particular river. We prefer, therefore, 
 not dilating longer on the domestic felicity of our 
 particular " Salmo " and his partner, during that 
 period of their sojourn in the Dee which they are 
 to devote to the safe placing of their future 
 numerous progeny. We have simply to remark, 
 for the information of those who may be ignorant 
 of the fact, that the attachment we have supposed 
 to exist between the two fish, is by no means a 
 fabulous invention. Nature has not imposed on 
 them the task of rearing their young ; but she has 
 that of making provision for their future safety 
 till hatched, and it is a matter of authenticity in 
 natural history scarcely unfamiliar to any, how 
 assiduously the male fish attends upon the female 
 with whom he is for the time associated in this 
 duty ; how indefatigably he labours with the 
 horny substance with which Nature has lately 
 provided his jaw in forming a trench in the gravel 
 bed which has at length been selected to receive 
 the spawn, ; how carefully the trench is again 
 
OF A SALMON. 78 
 
 covered up to form a fresh one ; and how long 
 these labours continue, until both fish, exhausted 
 and emaciated by their exertions, become what are 
 called "Kipper," or unseasonable salmon, quite 
 changed from the elegant rounded form, so gifted 
 with muscular |)ower with which they first entered 
 the river, and display a long lean lank body, 
 with disproportionately large head, and flesh so 
 worthless that none but a poacher would ever 
 pursue them. Unfortunately, however, the 
 poacher does still do so, Tinless restrained by 
 a seasonable apprehension of the law; and at 
 no period is the fish more completely in his 
 power. Weak, languid, incapable of any vigor- 
 ous or continued exertion, the poor sick salmon 
 seeks only the covert of a hole under some 
 friendly root of a tree, or large stone, and lies 
 there for hours, apparently in a half lethargic 
 state, waiting for his strength to be in some 
 measure recruited by complete repose, ere he 
 again commences his journey to the sea. It 
 is easy then to discover him — to ensnare or 
 destroy him : you may net him, or gaff" him, or 
 spear him ; his former quick eye, intuitive ap- 
 prehension, and rapid flight from danger appear 
 to have deserted him ; you may arrive at him 
 with the hand, or even the foot, and once gently 
 stroke his body, he remains as it were paralyzed 
 
71 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 and motionless; the fatal gaff hook is slipped 
 quietly under him, struck suddenly into his side, 
 and in a moment he is flapping away his ex- 
 istence in the green meadow, to be either dried 
 for red salmon in the cottager's chimney, or sold 
 for threehalfpence a pound to some neighbouring 
 farmer. 
 
 But we have already declared that we do not 
 profess to write the life of our salmon ; and here 
 we shall for the present take our leave of him, 
 reserving to ourselves the privilege of again, at 
 some future day, recurring to his adventures, 
 should we feel so disposed, and permitting our 
 readers to remain in doubt as to his final destiny 
 — how long, and how often he is.to return to his 
 native river. 
 
 If we have only made more apparent the 
 numberless dangers that peril every day of his 
 existence — if we have awakened a larger share 
 of interest in his fate — if we have shewn how 
 necessary it is for us to exert the powers the 
 law has provided, in order to rescue his princely 
 species from absolute extermination, and how 
 desirable it is that the means taken should be 
 rendered effective by general and universal sup- 
 port — our end will have been answered. 
 
 We are too well aware how much the better 
 preservation of the Kiver Dee is prevented by 
 
OF A SALMON. 70 
 
 that great hindrance to any cause, lukewarmness ; 
 even among those who profess to wish it well. 
 And this lukewarmness springs, as ever, from 
 the usual source, ignorance — ignorance of the 
 importance of the object, and ignorance of the 
 difficulties which lie in the way. If every man 
 who loves to see a salmon in the river, or cares to 
 see one on his table knew how many apparent im- 
 possibilities the fish had to encounter ere he could 
 possibly attain a reasonable size, there would be 
 many more than we can -boast of, who would 
 think it worth while to assist in doing away with 
 some of those impediments. But with regard to 
 the importance of the subject, i^aost men, are as 
 yet — much as it has been canvassed — entirely 
 blind. The land is racked on every side to 
 support fresh produce : science, art, invention 
 and experience, are alike taxed, to compel the 
 earth to yield double her increase ; and success- 
 fully. While the waters, full of prolific life, 
 and capable of sustaining and yielding a tenfold 
 amount, are utterly neglected ; neglected from 
 ignorance of their wealth ; neglected by the 
 selfishly culpable indifference of many who would 
 eagerly grasp at any means of direct profit, but 
 who hesitate to hold out a little finger towards a 
 work of public benefit — however much it may 
 promise an indirect return ; and neglected again, 
 
 L 
 
76 THE ADVENTURES OF A SALMON. 
 
 because every scheme which has for its object 
 general results, has to encounter in its progress 
 little jealousies, which peril the undertaking at 
 every turn, and sometimes threaten to disgust 
 even its warmest adherents. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which a 
 former Association for the preservation of the 
 Dee was broken up ; such, we trust, however, 
 will not be the fate of the present one. 
 
 Every day that adds to our stock of informa- 
 tion relating to the physiology of fish, is opening 
 the eyes of the public to the importance of the 
 subject, and to the fact that its importance is 
 still underrated. Experiments lately made have 
 demonstrated the possibihty of making even an 
 unproductive river, by artificial means, a source 
 of absolute wealth '/^ and common sense tells us 
 the wisdom of so protecting the fish that Nature 
 has sent us, that they may attain a maturity 
 which shall increase their value fifty-fold, and 
 prevent their indiscriminate destruction, while as 
 yet all but absolutely worthless. 
 
 * See a shiHing pamphlet on the "Artificial pro- 
 duction of Fish," by Piscarius, published by Reeve 
 & Co., which gives an account of what has already 
 been done in France, and a detailed description of 
 the method. 
 
NOTES 
 
 THE FLY- FISHER. 
 
IMn for tlj! /lij-fiBlirr. 
 
 ^^^^HE experienced artist, complete in his 
 ^m^ tackle, and perfect in his experience, 
 visiting Wales, not for the first time, to put in 
 practice the science he has there and elsewhere 
 acquired, will need no instruction from us, either 
 where to look for sport or how to find it ; and 
 entertaining a very considerahle degree of con- 
 tempt for " hook learning " on this head, it is 
 only at the suggestion of some friends, who think 
 that a few words on the suhject, addressed to the 
 tyro in the art, might embrace a considerahle 
 number of young anglers visiting Wales for the 
 first time, and to whom some general remarks 
 on the principal object of their visit might be 
 acceptable, that we venture to offer a few 
 hints, touching the stations, flies, &c. &c., more 
 
80 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 immediately connected with tlie Dee, quantum 
 vale ant. 
 
 On the very banks of the river itself are several 
 very good ''locations," some of which possess the 
 advantage of having brooks and lakes in the 
 neighbourhood, as well as the fishing in the 
 Dee itself. 
 
 Fly-fishing is not much pursued below Overton 
 Bridge. The sport there is very good in the 
 right season, — that is the latter end of July and 
 August, when the Salmon and Sewin have come 
 up, which they do after a flood about that time. 
 The Trout-fishing is but poor here, the river 
 being too full of Dace and Chevin, which, how- 
 ever, afi'ord good sport to young fly-fishers, who 
 are content not X^ojiy at higher game. There is 
 a comfortable little roadside inn close to the 
 bridge, very picturesquely situated, and chiefly 
 frequented by anglers. 
 
 The streams and pools above Wynnstay are 
 very good; but too much whipped by miners, 
 who come down continually with their coracles, 
 by the assistance of which not a hole nor an eddy 
 escapes them. This part of the river is, there- 
 fore, seldom visited by amateurs, who generally 
 make the "Hand Hotel," at Llangollen, their 
 first resting-place, and where they do well to 
 remain awhile. 
 
FLY- FISHER. 81 
 
 From about a mile below Llangollen up 
 to Bala, no part of the river is unworthy atten- 
 tion; but varying experience leads to various 
 opinions as to the best portions of the river. 
 One day's ground, if you have not time to take a 
 longer range, is to walk up to the Chain Bridge, 
 about two miles distant, and fish back to Llan- 
 gollen ; and we should remark, that with the 
 exception of the streams immediately below 
 Llantysilio Weir, you will have to return about 
 a mile before it will be of much use to throw the 
 fly again, the river being, for nearly that distance, 
 a succession of rocky torrents, difficult of ap 
 proach, and unsuited for the fly. From Pentre- 
 veylin Weir to Llangollen the streams are 
 exceedingly good, and when not over-fished 
 afi'ord good sport. A stretch of a mile or mile 
 and a half higher up, to a farm called Pen-y-dre, 
 puts you in possession of the streams above 
 Llantysilio Weir, which generally afibrd excel- 
 lent sport. A five-mile w^alk, or drive, up to 
 Glyndwrdu, afibrds still better and more select 
 ground, the streams being admirable, and not so 
 much fished, and you may either fish up or down 
 the river ; but anglers coming from Llangollen 
 generally fish down again. 
 
 The trout are not large in the Dee ; they 
 seldom average a quarter of a pound ; but still 
 
82 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 you generally get two or three half-pounders 
 — sometimes large fish — and the expectation 
 keeps up the sport. In the spring, till the 
 floods of April or May carry them away, you 
 get abundance of the young smelt or salmon, 
 weighing three or four ounces, which are not 
 bad sport, and most delicious eating — far supe- 
 rior to trout. In the autumn, by putting a 
 sewin fly on for your end fly, you sometimes 
 pick up two or three, which afford the finest 
 sport of all (except a salmon), and wonderfully 
 add to the weight of your basket. The only 
 drawback to the fly-fisher in the Dee, are the 
 long pools in some parts of its course, which 
 often oblige you to walk half a mile between 
 each stream without throwing a fly, and fatigue 
 any except a professed pedestrian. These pools 
 are overhung with wood, very picturesque, but 
 completely inaccessible to the fly-fisher, except 
 with a coracle, which it requires great skill to 
 manage, and which indeed a man ought to be 
 an expert swimmer ever to take a seat in.* 
 
 * In the immediate neighbourhood of Llangollen 
 are several brooks, in which, after rain^ good sport 
 may be had. The chief of these is the Cenioge ; 
 and a very good two or three days' fishing may be 
 had by the following route :— Take the mountain 
 road from Llangollen to Glyn (about two miles), 
 fish up the Ceirioge to Llanarmon (eight miles), walk 
 
IttS''" 
 
FLY-FISHER. 83 
 
 Corwen is the next station above Llangollen ; 
 there is an excellent house there, the Owen 
 Glyndwr Hotel. The fishing from Corwen is 
 equally good, both up and down the river, 
 each locality having its partizans ; but to our 
 fancy the streams near Llansaintfiraid, three 
 miles below Corwen, are about the .best fishing 
 in the Dee. There are also other rivers in the 
 immediate neighbourhood. The Alwen, which 
 joins the Dee about two miles above Corwen. 
 is a small, but very good- river, after rain, and 
 when there is sufficient water. The best way 
 to fish it is to take a car up from Corwen to 
 Cerrig-y-druidion, ten miles, and fish the Ceirw, 
 till if falls into the Alwen, and so down to 
 Ty Nant, a distance of about three miles, where 
 the car can meet you. There are, however, two 
 excellent houses at Cerrig-y-druidion, at either 
 of which you will find good accommodation ; 
 
 the other three to Llanrhaiadr, and you have then five 
 miles of the finest fishing possible on the Tanat. — 
 N.B. — You must have permission here, as the Tanat 
 is strictly preserved. Two years ago I was much 
 disappointed to find the Tanat much injured by the 
 water from some copper mines, but I understand it 
 is again free *from that objection. Besides the Tanat, 
 however, you have at Llanrhaiadr a brook called the 
 Cynlleth, and at Llanfyllin, about three miles distant, 
 the river Cain, in which there is good fishing. 
 
 M 
 
84 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 one of them, the " Saracen's Head," is kept by 
 a thorough sportsman, Thomas Jones, always 
 ready, both with his gun and his rod, and know- 
 ing every yard of the country. By making 
 Cerrig-y-druidion your station, you get within 
 approach of the Yspytty and Pentrevoelas rivers, 
 both of which are worthy of a visit. All these 
 small rivers are, however, exceedingly capricious, 
 we have had most excellent sport in them all, and 
 frequently as bad, sometimes without apparent 
 cause ; but it is useless to attempt fishing them 
 except after rain. 
 
 A few lines from a private journal, kept in 
 1849, may not be inappropriate, as giving the 
 particulars of a day in that neighbourhood ; and 
 though the apothegm with which it commences 
 may smack of conceit, we must say, we still sub- 
 scribe to it. 
 
 "7th May, 1849. — A fly-fisher who knows his 
 vocation, is pretty sure of sport in the Dee. 
 
 "Drove over from Euthin to Cerrig-y-druidion 
 in the evening — intending to fish in the Ceirw 
 the following day. 
 
 '• 8th May. — Up soon after sunrise, and strolled 
 down to the river ; found it too low. Ordered 
 out the mare and drove to Yspytty (8 miles) 
 trusting to accounts of the river there, being in 
 good condition. No such thing ; scarce enough 
 
FLY-FISHER. 85 
 
 water in the river to wash a table cloth ! What 
 to do ? Gave the mare a feed, and thought the 
 matter over at breakfast, Determined to retrace 
 my steps, and drive to Llansaintffraid, on the Dee 
 (then eighteen miles distant). All this time the 
 day, which did not begin promisingly, looking 
 less propitious. A cold north-west wind, with 
 a driving, dirty, grey sky — " that very ancient 
 grey," — that looked as if it would rain if the 
 wind would let it. Beached LlansaintiFraid a 
 little before one. Almost in doubt whether to 
 be at the trouble of taking the mare out and 
 putting my rod together : what trout would shew 
 his nose above water to such a wind as that ? 
 However, that day was my own, th& next did 
 not belong to me, so down to the river ; and as 
 I never like to do things by halves, walked right 
 into the river and up to my knees at once — 
 (much the best way — always prevents all future 
 fears about wetting your feet !) To my surprise 
 rose a fish immediately, and though I have had 
 many a better three-hours sport, yet considering 
 all the circumstances I bragged no little on 
 weighing my fish at Corwen — seven pounds and 
 a half. Driving to dinner from Llansaintfiraid 
 
 to Corwen, passed P , two of his friends, 
 
 and the keeper — in all, four rods ; had been at 
 it since nine in the morning, and got amongst 
 
86 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 them but five pounds weight. Take it altogether, 
 I don't know a surer river than the Dee : if they 
 won't rise between Bahi Pool and Llangollen, 
 they won't rise anywhere." 
 
 A favourite station with some anglers is the 
 Druid, about two miles from Corwen, situate on 
 the Holyhead road, and close to the Alwen. 
 
 Five miles above Corwen is Llandrillo, which 
 is convenient for anglers preferring that im- 
 mediate part of the river : there is a comfortable 
 little house of no pretension, where you may 
 have very good accommodation. We must con- 
 fess we do not prefer this part of the river. The 
 streams are shallower and broader, destitute of 
 the large rocks and stones which are found lower 
 down, and consequently more easily netted, of 
 which two or three most notorious poachers at 
 Cynwyd,* a hamlet in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood, have too much availed themselves. Higher 
 up, the character of the river again improves, 
 and by making the "Lion" at Bala one of your 
 stations, you have a variety of fishing seldom 
 offered to the angler at any one spot. 
 
 Indeed Bala has become to many whose love 
 of the craft induces them to reside occasionally 
 in Wales, a sort of *' head quarters," whence to 
 
 * This poaching has lately been put a stop to, by 
 the Association for preserving the River Dee Fishery. 
 
FLY-FISHER. 87 
 
 make excursions in any direction. In the first 
 place, that magnificent sheet of water, Llyn 
 Tegid, or, as it is called by the English, " Bala 
 Pool," is the most important lake in Wales, being 
 about four miles in length, and a mile and a half 
 broad. It lies in a sort of basin, towards which 
 the hills descend so gradually, that its banks, 
 though gently picturesque and well wooded, lack 
 the abrupt grandeur of the lakes in more moun- 
 tainous districts. The fishing is very varied; 
 trout, pike, and perch are to be taken, and, of 
 course, in a variety of ways. Sometimes monsters 
 of each kind are captured;* trout of three or 
 four pounds rise to the fly in favourable weather, 
 and some from seven to ten pounds have been 
 killed lately when trolling for pike. 
 
 The fishing for trout or pike, however, depends 
 much on the weather, and the fish are very capri- 
 cious ; but the perch-fishing almost always affords 
 sport, and as the fish average a quarter of pound 
 and sometimes run larger, it is often resorted to 
 
 * Pennant mentions one which weighed twenty-five 
 pounds. He also speaks of the gwyniad, or char, as 
 abounding, and mentions one taken which weighed 
 five pounds. (?) These fish have since become very 
 scarce and seldom met with, probably in consequence 
 of the whim of the late Sir Watkin Wynn, who encou- 
 raged the pike, and would not suffer that ravenous 
 worthless fish to be destroyed. 
 
88 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 when the weather is unfavourable to the former. 
 The trout will rise here in very cold weather. We 
 have known them taken with the fly in December 
 and January with snow on the ground, and snow 
 water in the lake.* Fly-fishing is often pursued 
 from the shore, and some insist that it is very 
 killing. Sir Watkin Williams Wynn has several 
 boats on the lake, one of which may be had by 
 sending a man with your card to Glanllyn, about 
 four miles distant, where the boats are kept, and 
 this difl&culty is purposely interposed to prevent* 
 the free use of the boats being abused. Several 
 rivers fall into the lake. Certainly they are but 
 brooks, but after rain the sport in all of them is 
 
 * On the 15th Jan. 1853, a trout was killed in Bala 
 Pool by Mr. Edwards, of Vrongoch, who was fishing 
 from shore. The fish was taken with a small dun fly, 
 and weighed six pounds. — Sir C. Hamilton killed with 
 the fly in May and June 1852, 1185 trout, chiefly in the 
 rivers falling into the lake. The flies with which he 
 killed most were the Gravel fly and February red. — 
 Mr. Edward Whately, who has fished Bala Lake of late 
 years most assiduously, has killed several large fish. 
 In trolling for pike, a few years ago, he hooked and 
 killed after an hour's sport a trout weighing ten pounds 
 and a quarter. At other times he has killed them from 
 four to eleven pounds weight. His nephew and him- 
 self, on one occasion, killed from one boat at the same 
 time two pike, the one weighing eight, the other twelve 
 pounds. 
 
FLY-FISHER. 89 
 
 often very good, and would be admirable, could 
 the arrangements to prevent netting and preserve 
 them, which have been often attempted, be car- 
 ried out. The principal ones are the Dee, the 
 Lliw, and the Twrch, which fall into the lake at 
 its head, and the Lafar, whose mouth is at 
 Glanliyn, about two miles lower down. Just on 
 the other side Bala, and falling into the Dee 
 half a mile below the lake, is another, the 
 Treweryn, which descends from the mountains 
 between Bala and FestiniGg. 
 
 Most unfortunate is it that these rivers cannot 
 be properly preserved. As they are, they are so 
 well adapted for preserving j^nd breeding the 
 fish — so defended from the poacher by deep 
 pools and large rocks, that even now, and with- 
 out any strict preserving, they will afford sport, 
 which if properly looked after would, we have 
 no doubt, be some of the finest in the princi- 
 pality. A club was formed some time since for 
 this purpose ; keepers were appointed and funds 
 raised; but some few individuals were dissatisfied 
 with the arrangements ; jealousies and heart- 
 burnings took place ; and the attempt was given 
 up. We are sorry to say that subsequently, men, 
 who have not the poacher's apology of necessity 
 to plead, have not been ashamed to rival him in 
 his low pot-hunting propensities, and have braved 
 
90 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 public opinion, by sweeping these rivers with 
 their nets in open daylight ! 
 
 It is singular, in a country such as Wales, 
 how very few fish tackle makers and vendors 
 there are. We cannot call to mind one anywhere 
 except at Bala. Sometimes a shoemaker or a 
 watchmaker exposes a few flies or lines in his 
 windows, but a regular fish tackle maker you 
 will not meet with anywhere, that we are aware of 
 except at Bala. Here, however, is a most excel- 
 lent one : Griffith Jones, who is also a saddler, 
 and whose shop is exactly opposite the hotel. 
 His stock of flies is always well kept up, and 
 generally made with great judgment; while tackle 
 of every kind, rods, nets, panniers, &c , are to 
 be had of the very best sort, and in great variety. 
 We seldom pass through Bala without refitting 
 some part of our accoutrements, and if we want 
 flies made to pattern, send them to Griffith Jones 
 by post, wherever we may be. 
 
 The favourite flies in the Dee are the March 
 Brown, and the Yellow and Blue Duns, with 
 sometimes a Coch-a-byndu as a dropper, or a Ked 
 spinner for the tail fly. At times the Yellow dun 
 with a body formed of orange dubbing is the 
 most killing, especially in the streams about 
 Corwen. The best way, however, for a stranger, 
 here and elsewhere, is to appeal to the judgment 
 
FLY-FISHER. 91 
 
 of some one well accustomed to the locality. 
 There is always an old fisherman to be found, 
 who will be ready to give his assistance and 
 advice for a trifle ; and, with regard to trout flies, 
 you generally may rely on his judgment. These 
 men can either dress you a fly, or pick out a few 
 sure killing ones from their own stock ; and the 
 niceties of shade and colour necessary for each 
 locality are apt to escape the discrimination of a 
 stranger. In salmon flies we have not such implicit 
 confidence in the natives ;^ they vary with every 
 state of the river; but if a man once kills a salmon 
 with any particular fly, the fly is established for 
 ever in his opinion, though the concurring cir- 
 cumstances whfth rendered that fly for the time 
 attractive, may never occur again. Take a man's 
 opinion as to the general character of form, size, 
 and colour, which may govern your choice ; but 
 if you have a good assortment of the usual 
 salmon flies, we should prefer using them to any 
 of those which may be offered you as the manu- 
 facture of the country. The same remarks 
 apply to the sewin flies. 
 
 Having reached so central a position as Bala, 
 a few remarks on the principal fishing stations 
 within a few miles distance, with notes of the 
 writer's " experience," may not be unacceptable. 
 
 A mountain road along the banks of the Tre- 
 
 N 
 
92 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 weryn takes you to Festiniog, 19 miles. About 
 three iniles this side of Festiniog is Llyn Mor- 
 wynion, celebrated for the beauty of its game 
 and lively fish ; it is, however, a difficult lake to 
 fish, requiring great tact and delicate handling 
 of the rod, as well as in the choice of the fly, and 
 only first rate anglers are able to boast of success 
 there ; the fish, too, are very capricious, and not 
 even the most finished artist can always tempt 
 them to rise. There are other lakes in the 
 neighbourhood, of which I know nothing except 
 by hearsay. 
 
 In the river which runs down below Festiniog, 
 past Maentwrog, is the best sewin fishing I ever 
 met with in Wales, It is necSfesary, however, 
 to be on the spot in order to seize the right 
 moment for sallying forth, as 'it is only after 
 rain that there is any sport ; and the river being 
 short (only about six miles*bf any body of water) 
 and fed from the precipitous mountains imme- 
 diately around, the river rises and falls in an 
 unusually short time. It is sometimes too great 
 a flood to fish at one part of the day, and, within 
 twelve hours, too low water to do any good ; 
 but for eight hours out of those twelve the sport 
 is magnificent, being entirely sewin or salmon, 
 from one up to ten or twelve pounds weight. 
 
 I shall never forget my first day's fishing there, 
 
\ 
 
FLY-FISHER. 93 
 
 when sewin fishing was new to me, and when, 
 accompanied by Jack Evans, (one of the most 
 astute poachers and best attendants in the Erinci- 
 pality) I hooked and killed, after twenty minutes* 
 fight, a fine salmon, fresh from the salt water. 
 The fish was thrown aside on the gravel bed, 
 while I eagerly essayed a fresh cast; Jack as 
 eagerly watching the fly, and giving his hints as 
 to the most likely parts of the stream ; suddenly 
 a cry from the bank attracted our notice — and 
 behold ! a great sow, trotting off at the rate of 
 eight miles an hour with the salmon in her 
 beastly jaws ! Away went Jack, and away went 
 I after him ; we chased her through the meadow, 
 up the lane, past the cottages, whence issued 
 spectators; brooms, spindles, and three-legged 
 stools, flew about her ears to no purpose; 
 such shouting and hilloaing ! the whole village 
 was raised ; at last, giving her no time to munch 
 it, and being run close, she dropped it without 
 farther damage than the marks her ugly tusks 
 had inflicted on each side of the fish. 
 
 To the best of my recollection the fish weighed 
 five pounds and a half; but as I have heard Jack 
 tell the whole story repeatedly since, — as he inva- 
 riably adds half a pound to the weight of the fish 
 each time he tells it, and as I never contradict 
 
94 NOTES lOR THE 
 
 him, — the size of the fish must he something 
 extraordinary hy this time. 
 
 The trout fishing in this river is worthless ; 
 hut there is good sport on a windy day in the 
 pools of the Trawsfynydd river, ah out three 
 miles above Maentwrog. The ''Maentwrog 
 Inn/' kept by B. Lloyd — an ardent sportsman 
 and very good fellow — is as comfortable an hotel 
 as any in Wales. 
 
 There is occasionally good sewin fishing in the 
 Mawddach, between Trawsfynydd and Dolgelley; 
 but it is too much fished. There is the same 
 objection to the Ynion, which flows past Dol- 
 gelley ; but large fish are occasionally taken in 
 the lower part of the river ; and higher up, near 
 Drwsynant, about nine miles from Dolgelley, I 
 have had good sport after rain with sewin, all of 
 them under three quarters of a pound weight. 
 
 About nine miles from Dolgelley is the lake 
 of Tal-y-llyn, justly celebrated as the best and 
 surest water for trout fishing in North Wales. 
 Though familiar by repute to all anglers, and 
 often mentioned in guide books, I have no where 
 met with an attempt to describe its peculiarities, 
 and am therefore induced to speak more at 
 length of it, as a very favourable resort, than I 
 should otherwise have done. 
 
 The lake of Tal-y-llyn — the proper name of 
 
FLY-FISHER. 95 
 
 which is Llyn-y-myngel, is neither more nor 
 less than a mountain tarn of rather more than 
 ordinary dimensions. The extensive range of 
 mountains which* is crowned hy Cader Idris, 
 descends abruptly on the south east, into a gorge 
 which is the commencement of a long narrow 
 valley, down which the river Dysynni finds its 
 way to the sea. The lake is a more than usually 
 evident consequence of the laws which geologists 
 recognize wherever a lake exists, and nowhere, 
 perhaps, are the causes more clearly demon- 
 strated, nor could a geologist well find a more 
 apt illustration of the simple axioms hy which a 
 lake has been originally formed. 
 
 The same convulsive force, probably volcanic, 
 which at a far remote period raised the bare 
 stem granite masses of Cader Idris to the clouds, 
 threw across this narrow valley a mound of rocks 
 (now covered with soil and verdure), which, about 
 two miles down its course, has arrested the cur- 
 rent of the streams from the upper valleys, and 
 suffering only one narrow exit to be worn by the 
 waters, keeps them back in the hollow of the valley 
 at a certain level, and forms the lake. So com- 
 pletely does the lake cover all the level ground, 
 that only at its head, where, as usual, the delta 
 formed by the gradually subsiding debris from 
 the mountains has given a few marshy meadows, 
 
9^ NOTES FOR THE 
 
 is there any flat ground whatever; the moun- 
 tains rise abruptly from the margin of the lake, 
 and the road by which you approach the inn, is 
 so narrow a thread along its shore, that whenever 
 the lake is pretty full from rain, it is much of it 
 submerged by the encroaching water. On the 
 very shore of the lake, at its lower end, is the 
 inn : occupying the centre of the mound of rocks 
 which form the barrier, is the Church, with a 
 small stone arch thrown across the stream below, 
 and a little whitewashed public -house, of ancient 
 date, called Pen-y-bont, close to the bridge. 
 
 Scarcely anything could be more wildly pic- 
 turesque and striking than every part of this 
 isolated little valley and l^ke. The mountains 
 rising with such steep abruptness from the very 
 waters, cast a variety of dark reflections upon 
 their surface, which give them an appearance of 
 peculiar depth and efi*ect ; the rich green, brown, 
 and purple hues of the heathy hills mingle in 
 the reflections of the water, with an adventitious 
 brilliancy, such as one might attribute to the 
 colouring and imagination of a painter ; but vain 
 would be the eff'ort of an artist to stamp upon 
 his canvass one fleeting effect of those thousand 
 varying hues which pass with every cloud over 
 the clefts and gorges, the towering rocks and 
 deep-recesses of the undulating hills, and are 
 
FLY-FISHER. 97 
 
 reflected with increased depth and brilliancy in 
 the waters below. 
 
 Everything about the lake is in keeping with 
 its wild grandeur of character ; the few trees 
 about the inn and church, where alone there is 
 room for trees to grow, add to, instead of taking 
 from the general wild effect ; the sound of the 
 Church bell, the halloo of the shepherd or the 
 bark of his dog, condensed as it were in the 
 hollow of the mountains, ring with an echoing 
 reverberation along the waters of the lake, and 
 no other sounds, save the lowing of cattle, the 
 bleating of a stray sheep, or the croak of a 
 solitary raven winging his way Jiigh in air above 
 the valley from one range of craggs to the other, 
 disturb the silent solitude of the scene. 
 
 The lake is about a mile long, and not much 
 more than a quarter of a mile broad at its widest 
 part. Its mean depth is from eight to twelve 
 feet, except in one part, towards the middle and 
 upper end, which is very deep. This part has 
 been christened '' Saharah," or " the Great 
 Desert," from fish being so rarely taken there ; 
 and old hahituees of the lake are apt to indulge 
 in a dry, and not very amiable chuckle, when 
 they see a boat occupied by a couple of " grif- 
 fins" moored in this locality. The water of the 
 lake is beautifully transparent, so that the bottom 
 
98 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 may easily be seen when the weather is calm, 
 covered with a long weed which grows most 
 luxuriantly, and contributes no doubt to feed 
 the quantity of fish with which the lake abounds. 
 Fortunately the fish here are entirely trout ; 
 no perch or pike dispute possession of the 
 waters, which in some measure accounts for 
 their abundance. Their average weight is three 
 to the pound, or rather better. Thus I have 
 memoranda of 33 fish weighing 12|^lbs. ; 44 fish 
 13lbs., &c. The best average for weight was 
 one morning in 1847, when I killed 18 fish, 
 weighing rather over 91bs. I have heard of 
 trout weighing tjiree or four pounds being taken, 
 but until lately never believed it, as after fishing 
 the lake regularly for ten seasons I never killed 
 or saw a fish that weighed y////y one pound, until 
 the autumn of 1851, on one day of which I killed 
 one which weighed exactly a pound. The same 
 afternoon Mr. Cooke, a gentleman staying at the 
 inn, killed one the same weight; and the next 
 morning I took a third. They all weighed a 
 pound to a feather, or, perhaps, I ought to say, to 
 a scale. This same year Mr. Pring, the curate, 
 killed a fish which weighed nearly four pounds ; 
 it was, however, a diseased fish ; almost dead 
 when he took it, and so rotten that it had to be 
 buried immediately. 
 
FLY-FISHEK. 99 
 
 These fish are very game when hooked, and 
 very beautiful fish, generally in fine condition ; 
 they are good eating if cooked on the spot, bu£ 
 they will not keep or travel — at least they are 
 flabby and .flavourless in such case, which I 
 attribute to the weedy bottom, on which they no 
 doubt feed much. The best way is to have them 
 potted on the spot, and they are then most excel- 
 lent. They rise only to the fly, disregarding 
 entirely the spinning of the minnow, though •! 
 suppose they would take a worm after heavy 
 rains. This is, however, contrary to the rules 
 of the lake, which very properly only allow of 
 fly-fishing; and the minnow I have only tried 
 in order to verify the information I had, that a 
 trout was never known to rise to the minnow in 
 Tal-y-llyn.' I trolled one favourable windy day 
 the whole length of the lake, and there might 
 not have been a fish in it, to judge from the 
 utter disregard that was paid to the bait. 
 
 T do not profess, in these scattered memoranda, 
 to lecture on the art of fly-fishing — and shall 
 therefore not enter into the question as regards 
 this particular lake. I might, however, be 
 excused for doing so, as I know no place where 
 systems and dogmas as to certain particular flies 
 and the art of using them, are more canvassed 
 and disputed than at Tal-y-llyn. The visitors at 
 
 o 
 
100 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 the comfortable little inn there are generally so 
 entirely of one craft, that a sort free-masonry 
 brings them into more intimate and frank inter- 
 course than is usually the case among strangers 
 — and the day over, all, or most, meet to enjoy 
 their glass of wine, or grog, and cigar — when 
 the subject discussed is so invariably the same, 
 in one aspect or another — fly-fishing in general, 
 but especially at Tal-y-Uyn — that nowhere do you 
 bear so much fishing lore or fishing anecdote. 
 In particular, there are a few noted men, known 
 as masters of the science ; and from long expe- 
 rience of the lake, especially looked up to at 
 Tal-y-llyn ; whose style, and practice, and flies, 
 &c., &c., are all quoted and discussed, each one 
 having his admirers, who think every heavy 
 basket is made either by that particular system — 
 or else by a chance which does not deserve it. 
 Very entertaining these discussions are ; and no 
 less so, that some let out their opinions very 
 charily, fully believing themselves in possession 
 of secrets which they are not at all willing to 
 make too common. The chief art, however, is 
 at Tal-y-llyn as elsewhere, — particularly in clear 
 water — no secret, but skill and science. To fish 
 fine ^n^far off, is what you may tell in so many 
 words ; but how many can do it ? At the same 
 time I must acknowledge a nicety and caprice 
 
FLY-FISHER. 101 
 
 in the fish with regard to the exact colour 
 and make of the fly, which is common in, most 
 lakes — but very remarkable here; a shade of 
 difference in the feather, a bit of tinsel, or 
 different body, is sufficient, often, to render a 
 fly taking or the reverse ; and as to what the fly 
 will be — no one knows till the day comes ; they 
 are of all sorts. I have found a small March 
 brown, or Grouse, or Partridge hackle, and the 
 Yellow dun, as a general rule, the favourites. 
 
 There is at times, after rain in the autumn, 
 excellent sewin fishing in the Dysyni, which 
 runs from the lake to the sea, a distance of about 
 twelve miles. About six miles below Tal-y-llyn, 
 on this river, is a noted rock called the ' Bird 
 rock,' a high beetling cliff, which being inacces- 
 sible to beings without wings, is the abode of 
 birds of prey to an incredible extent, in parti- 
 cular of cormorants, who come there to roost in 
 numbers of two or three hundred. Sportsmen 
 frequently make excursions from Tal-y-llyn to the 
 Bird Rock with rifles, to wait the return of these 
 birds in the evening from their distant feeding 
 grounds; and as they come sailing home to their 
 high nests, they afford good sport for ball 
 practice. 
 
 High up the mountains, on the ascent to 
 Cader Idris is a small lake, . the trout of which 
 
102 NOTES FOR THE 
 
 are said to be excellent, and afford good sport 
 when in the humour. They are, however, ex- 
 ceedingly capricious : and I have never had a 
 day to throw away in climbing the hills, without 
 any certainty of having sport when I arrived at 
 the spot. 
 
 Tal-y-llyn belongs to Sir Eobert Vaughan, who 
 built the inn, which is now an exceedingly well 
 conducted comfortable house, though scarcely 
 large enough,, during the season, for all who 
 would wish to take up their quarters there. 
 One additional large room as a coffee room, with 
 bed-rooms built over it, would add greatly to the 
 comfort and accommodation of the house; as it 
 is, many who come there to fish are obliged to 
 put up with very inferior accommodation in the 
 immediate neighbourhood, or drive to Dolgelly 
 or Machynlleth, both of them nine miles distant, 
 for the night. 
 
 There are three boats on the lake, all of them 
 the property of Sir Eobert Vaughan, but he 
 very kindly permits them to be used by visitors 
 staying at the inn. The use of the boats, how- 
 ever, and all fishing, is, as a matter of course, 
 forbidden on Sundays ; nor would one suppose 
 any person pretending to the character of a 
 gentleman would seek to infringe this rule. 
 Such was, however, . the case on one occasion 
 
FLY-FISHER. 103 
 
 during the year 1851, when some three or four 
 snobs from Liverpool — whose names it would be 
 a right punishment to publish — got hold of the 
 boats, and set this rule at defiance. The dese- 
 cration of the day would form no obstacle to 
 men of this class, set at liberty in a remote 
 village, and supposing themselves beyond the 
 reach of public opinion. It may be as well, 
 however, to hint to such men that they are mis- 
 taken in thinking themselves thus secure ; that 
 a note has been made of their names, for the 
 purpose of preventing their again outraging 
 public decency in a similar manner : and that I 
 or any other person making enquiry, could 
 publish their names to the world, if it were 
 deemed expedient, together with their drunken 
 frolics in the evening. Setting aside the sacri- 
 lege of thus profaning that Sabbath, which 
 should be binding in a Christian country, no 
 man of education or gentlemanly habits would 
 outrage the feelings of a people scrupulously 
 religious as are the Welsh, by the commission 
 of an act which they look on with dislike and 
 abhorrence. But some men are most ready to 
 preach, " Do at Kome as they at Eome do," so 
 long as the doing accords with their secret 
 inclinations — but are very indignant and exclaim 
 against bigoted interference, if the same rule is 
 
104 NOTES FOR THE FLY-FISHER. 
 
 pressed on their attention, when the inclination 
 to obey it is wanting. 
 
 It can scarcely be too windy for Tal-y-Uyn, 
 so long as you are able to sit in the boat and 
 keep your flies on the water : the sport is never 
 good until the wind runs high enough to cause 
 long streaks of foam along the lake, amongst 
 which you are almost always sure to rise fish, 
 but not always so sure to kill them ; they often, 
 particularly in the Autumn, rise sJiort, — or as 
 they call it in the north " close ill " — that is in 
 play, not in earnest ; and I have found in such 
 cases the average to be one fish hooked for ten 
 or sometimes twelve rises. The best sport I 
 ever had on Tal-y-llyn, was on the 17th May, 
 1847, when between the hours of 12 and 2.30, I 
 killed 33 fish, weighing 122^1bs. ; raining hard 
 all the time. 
 
 CHESTER t 
 
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