Very little is known of the habits and economy of fish from the nature of the element in which they live. When I resided in Bushy Park, I caused the sides and bottom of a place to be bricked, through which a stream of very clear water ran, and stocked it with most of the varieties of our English fresh-water fish, supplying them abundantly with food; but though I constantly watched them, and could see all they did at any time of the day, the result of my observations was far from being satisfactory. The perch were the boldest and most familiar of any of the fish, as I found no difficulty in soon getting them to come with eagerness to take a worm out of my hand. The barbel were the shyest, and seemed most impatient of observation, although in the spring, when they could not perceive any one watching them, they would roll about and rub themselves against the brickwork, and show considerable playfulness. There were some large stones in my piscatorium, round which they would wind their spawn in considerable quantities. The trout appeared to bear their confinement with less philosophy than any of the others, making high leaps against the grating which admitted the water, and seeming at all times out of sorts and out of condition. The chub were also very restless, being continually on the move, but they never could resist a cockchafer when thrown to them. My flounders only moved at night, and the eels always made their escape, but in what way I never could conjecture, except, indeed, they had the power of crawling up the brickwork, which was about five feet from top to bottom, and generally two feet above the edge of the water. They certainly could not get through the grating, which was sufficiently close to confine bleak and gudgeons; and some of the eels were of a large size. The pike, of which I had eight of about five pounds’ weight each, kept up their character for voracity. Out of 800 gudgeons, which were brought to me by a Thames fisherman, and which I saw counted into the reservoir, some few of which however died, there were scarcely any to be seen at the end of three weeks, though I should mention that the three large barbel I had, and six good-sized perch, probably partook of them.
The author of the Wild Sports of the West, in speaking of the immense Loughs Masks and Corrib, says—“It would appear, that in these lakes the fish are commensurate to the waters they inhabit. It is no unusual event for pikes of thirty pounds weight to be sent to their landlords by the tenants; and fish of even fifty pounds have not unfrequently been caught with nets and night-lines. The trouts in those loughs are also immensely large. From fifteen to sixteen pounds is no unusual size, and some have been found that reached the enormous weight of thirty. The perch tribe appear the smallest in the scale of relative proportion. These seldom exceed a herring size; but they too have exceptions, and perch of three or four pounds weight have been sometimes seen. Within fifty years this latter fish has increased prodigiously, and in the lakes and rivers where they abound, trouts have been found to diminish in an equal ratio.”
Pike and perch were almost unknown in the rivers of Belcarra and Minola, and the chain of lakes with which they communicate, and these waters were then second to none for trout-fishing. Within ten years, my cousin tells me that he often angled in them, and that he frequently killed from three to six dozen of beautiful middle-sized red trouts. Now fly-fishing is seldom practised there. The trout is nearly extinct, and quantities of pike and perch infest every pool and stream. The simplest methods of taking fish will be here found successful, and the lakes of Westmeath will soon be rivalled by the loughs of Mayo.
It is a curious fact, that the loughs where the party angled, though situate in the same valley, and divided only by a strip of moorland not above fifty yards across, united by the same rivulet, and in depth and soil at bottom, to all appearance, precisely similar, should produce fish as different from each other as it is possible for those of the same species to be. In the centre lake, the trout are dull, ill-shaped, and dark-coloured; the head large, the body lank, and though of double size, compared to their neighbours, are killed with much less opposition. In the adjacent loughs, their hue is golden and pellucid, tinted with spots of a brilliant vermilion. The scales are bright, the head small, the shoulder thick, and from their compact shape, they prove themselves, when hooked, both active and vigorous. At table they are red and firm, and their flavour is particularly fine—while the dark trout are white and flaccid, and have the same insipidity of flavour which distinguishes a spent from a healthy salmon.
It is remarkable that only three kinds of fish have been transported from foreign parts into Great Britain—the carp, the tench, and the gold-fish.