Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/602

 A HISTORY OF KENT Lord Stanhope preserves the river at Seven- oaks, but the miller at Longford, close by, owns some water, and issues day tickets to visitors for roach and trout fishing. Eynsford affords some excellent trout-fishing — cer- tainly the best that the river has to offer, and probably the finest in the county. This part of the Darent is closely preserved by Mr. W. B. Leaf, who has spent a great deal of money in improving the fishing and re-stocking with trout from time to time. Occasionally he has a rod to let. At Farningham a nice stretch of the river is leased by the proprietor of the Lion Hotel, who issues tickets for the season or for shorter periods. This fishing is well looked after and was re-stocked with brown trout in 1907. A variety of flies are used on the Darent, the best, according to season, being the following : red and grey quills. Wick- ham's fancy, March brown, mayfly, olive dun, black gnat, and hare's ear. A trout of ij lb. or so is nowadays considered very good on the Darent waters, but in 1844 Mr. A. Jardine took a magnificent specimen of 6jlb. Among the less important streams or tribu- taries of the county may be included the Cray, Beult, Teise, and Eden. They are in part preserved, but the sport obtainable in them is not very noteworthy from a general point of view. The public may fish them in parts, and there are roach, pike, and a few other coarse fish to be caught in all of them. Trout are met with occasionally in the Beult and Cray. The Cray, which before the period of pollution set in was regarded as a sport-yielding stream of no small merit considering its size, has a beautiful gravel bottom in some of its reaches, but owing to the discharge of unclean matter and the low state of the water of recent years, a great deal of rubbish has collected, and the river requires heavy floods or dredging before it can regain its former good condition. Signs of recovery have become apparent during the past two or three seasons and now (1907) the river is showing a fair flow of water once more, notably in the Sidcup and Bexley districts. An attempt has latterly been made to re-stock the Cray with trout, but it is to be feared that the value of the river for fly-fishing has been too badly affected to recover in a short period. The waters at Orpington, Sidcup Place, the Crays, and at Bexley are private. The Beult is a tributary of the Medway, and has its source near Headcorn. It joins the main river close to Yalding. There is nothing to be said of it from an angling point of view that does not apply to the smaller streams of Kent in general. The Teise, another tributary of the Medway, is a nice little stream which rises near Tunbridge Wells, and runs through Goudhurst, Horsmonden, and Staplehurst, and finally, like the Beult, empties itself, after a wandering career of some thirty miles, into the Medway near Yalding. Another sporting little stream, the Eden, which joins the Medway near Pen- hurst, holds a variety of fish, principally dace, roach, and gudgeon, with a few bream here and there. It is mostly in private hands and is well preserved. In the Edenbridge district permission may be obtained to fish its waters on payment of a nominal fee of a shilling or two per rod for the day. The Eden rises near Godstone in Surrey and is sixteen miles in length. Mention should also be made of the Ravensbourne, although as an angling stream its glories have long since departed. At one time good fish were caught in its waters, which extend for ten miles, but being, as it is, a tributary of the Thames, commercial enterprise has ruined its capabilities as an angling river. The Dour, from which Dover takes its name, is a small stream of no importance to the angler ; and the Rother, which rises in Sussex and for some distance forms the boundary between that county and Kent, is, properly speaking, a Sussex river. It offers very fair sport to the general angler and a few trout of moderate size are to be caught in its reaches. It is, however, like a few other out of the way streams in Kent and Sussex, very badly poached in places, and some of its smaller tributaries are netted in wholesale fashion. Besides its rivers Kent possesses a number of excellent lakes and other still waters, several of which are well stocked with fish. The majority of these are in private hands, but permission to fish them can often be obtained by application or introduction. The lakes at Leeds Castle near Maidstone hold some good perch and several pike of large size. Leave to fish here can be obtained occasionally. Mr. A. Jardine once caught a 36 lb. pike in the Leeds Castle waters, and other anglers have had several specimen fish during more recent times. Mr. Jardine's pike was landed in 1877, and still ranks as one of the largest fish of the kind taken in English waters. Perch weighing as much as 4 lb. apiece have been taken in recent years at Leeds Castle. In 1879 H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh captured another very fine pike of 24^ lb. in the lake at East- well Park near Ashford, the seat of Lord Gerard. In years gone by there was good 508