A HISTORY OF KENT private owners, and the rest by various local clubs. TJie Medway contains a great variety of fish — roach, bream, perch, chub, pike, tench, and carp, with a few trout, and here and there a nice little sprinkling of dace. There are a good many deep holes, muddy at the bottom and overgrown with weeds and rushes, making ideal haunts for the ponderous bream, which grow to a good size in situations so exactly suited to their requirements. Next to bream, roach and chub are most numerous, the latter fish finding congenial quarters beneath the shade of the many over- hanging willows and alders. Here on a hot summer's day, armed with a goodly supply of cherries, the angler may usually secure a very respectable creel of these rather lazy fish. At other seasons the appetite of the Medway chub takes a great deal of tempting, and, like the trout, he is very spasmodic in his manner of feeding. Except in autumn and winter, when the Medway is subject to sudden floods which, however, subside almost as quickly as they rise, the river is slow running, and although it quickly recovers its level after a spate, it takes several days to fine down to a colour suitable for fishing. At such times the angler will do best to concentrate his attention on some of the smaller tributaries of the river. During the winter months, however, when the water is somewhat thick and discoloured, fair sport may occasionally be had with the roach. In frosty weather good pike are frequently taken. Angling competitions, in which a large number of London anglers participate each season, are very popular upon the Medway. The Tonbridge Angling Association looks after a distance of some eight miles of the upper reaches of the Medway and its tributaries, commencing at Ensfield Bridge near Penshurst, and extending to East Lock near East Peckham, where the Maidstone Angling Society takes over the management. Above Tonbridge the tributaries of the Med- way are of a very winding character, with sharp bends and steep shady banks, some- what difficult to fish but affording ideal haunts for fish of many kinds. Fly is not much used on these waters, but there are a few places where the water lends itself readily to the higher branches of the art. Both the Tonbridge Angling Associa- tion and the Maidstone Angling Society issue day tickets to non-members. Further down the river at Yalding and Wateringbury there is plenty of free fishing to be had. At Yalding, during the season of 1906, some good specimen roach up to 2 lb. apiece were taken. Night-fishing for bream is a sport that is extensively practised in the Medway. The fish feed best late in the evening, and again in the small hours of the morning, but fair baskets are occasionally taken during the day. The custom of ground-baiting a few particular holes or ' swims ' for several days in succession is generally adopted, and yields good results when the river is not too full of water. Warm, close weather is the best for this method of angling. Visitors to Medway waters will be struck by the use of a species of bait not to be met with, so far as we know, in any other part of the kingdom. The local anglers are credited with having discovered the killing power of this lure, ^'hich consists of pieces of cotton-seed (or cattle cake) broken up small and incorporated with bran, the mixture being used in the form of a ground-bait. Some anglers use a little of the cake upon the hook, working it up into a paste with bread, and the method is said to yield very good results with roach and bream. Chub are taken occasionally in the Medway by the fly, to which, when the fancy takes them, they will rise fairly satisfactorily and afford good sport. A big Palmer, or Zulu tied rather large, or a wasp fly is the most suitable on these occasions. Cheese-paste and lob-worms are also used with ledger or float tackle, and young frogs or caterpillars may be tried when the fish are in sulky mood. Speaking generally, the best winter baits in the Medway for roach, bream, chub, perch and dace are paste, bread-crust, gentles, and red-worms. There are so few instances of waters which have been rendered useless for fish- ing being restored to their original good condition, that cases of the kind may be considered worthy of special mention. Kent can provide a ver}^ good example of this desirable state of things in the case of the Stour, for at one time Fordwich and Canter- bury were ports and did such good business in the commercial world that the angler had no opportunity for indulging in his pastime. Indeed, it seems impossible to believe that where the fisherman now plies his rod for roach and casts the delicate fly for trout, the Stour was once the scene of great com- mercial activity and full of ships and shipping. It is said that the river in those days had its mouth near what is now known as Pluck's Gutter — a favourite pitch for anglers below Grove Ferry, not far from Margate — flowing into an arm of the sea which separated the Isle 506
