** *, of Ramsbury, who is said
to have killed in one day in his own streams on Kennet, seventy-six
trout, all above a pound, sounds like a traveller's imagination: yet
the fact is, I believe, accurately true.
This, however, is an extraordinary case upon an extraordinary stream.
In general, if a man shall bring home (beside small fish) a couple of
brace of from one to three pounds apiece, he may consider himself as
a happy man, and that the heavens have not shone, but frowned, upon
him very propitiously.
And now comes another and an important question. For which of all
these dainty eatables, if for any, do the trout take our flies? and
from that arises another. Why are the flies with which we have been
fishing this morning so large--of the size which is usually employed
on a Scotch lake? You are a North-country fisher, and are wont, upon
your clear streams, to fish with nothing but the smallest gnats. And
yet our streams are as clear as yours: what can be clearer?
Whether fish really mistake our artificial flies for different
species of natural ones, as Englishmen hold; or merely for something
good to eat, the colour whereof strikes their fancy, as Scotchmen
think--a theory which has been stated in detail, and with great
semblance of truth, in Mr.
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