I Asked Him Who Enjoyed The
Right Of Fishing In The River.
He said that in these parts the
fishing belonged to two or three proprietors, who either preserved
the fishing
For themselves, as they best could by means of keepers,
or let it out to other people; and that many individuals came not
only from England, but from France and Germany and even Russia for
the purpose of fishing, and that the keepers of the proprietors
from whom they purchased permission to fish, went with them, to
show them the best places, and to teach them how to fish. He added
that there was a report that the river would shortly be rhydd or
free and open to any one. I said that it would be a bad thing to
fling the river open, as in that event the fish would be killed at
all times and seasons, and eventually all destroyed. He replied
that he questioned whether more fish would be taken then than now,
and that I must not imagine that the fish were much protected by
what was called preserving; that the people to whom the lands in
the neighbourhood belonged, and those who paid for fishing did not
catch a hundredth part of the fish which were caught in the river:
that the proprietors went with their keepers, and perhaps caught
two or three stone of fish, or that strangers went with the
keepers, whom they paid for teaching them how to fish, and perhaps
caught half-a-dozen fish, and that shortly after the keepers would
return and catch on their own account sixty stone of fish from the
very spot where the proprietors or strangers had great difficulty
in catching two or three stone or the half-dozen fish, or the
poachers would go and catch a yet greater quantity.
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