From 10th of June, or thereabouts, the great Lakes are down until autumn, when the following flies will be found most effective: Clarets, of all shades, plain and ribbed, but the dark best-red hackle and mallard's wing. Fiery brown, plain and ribbed-red hackle and, occasionally, dyed claret hackle-mallard's wing. Crimson fly, plain or ribbed-red hackle and crimson-dyed do.mallard's wing. Orange fly-red hackle and mallard's wing, tipped with gold thread and light yellow. Do. ribbed with gold tinsel-breasted with wren's hackle--red kite's wing. Rat's fur, mixed with orange, gold tip, orange cuckoo hackle-light mallard's wing. All the foregoing to be tied on single and double B hooks. While the large lakes have their intervals, when the trout are altogether down, and will not rise at the fly, Lough-Glore, close by the ruins of Fore, and within about a mile and a half of Castlepollard, affords constant and excellent sport to the angler, from March to the last week in October; the trout at all times (the day suiting, being dark and windy) rising merrily. The flies must be tied on F's treble, C's and double C's; the prevailing colours: olives, hare's ear and yellow, cockers, hare's ear and claret-yellow-dyed hackle-stair's wing-cinnamons-red and black hackles-hedgehog, Connaught brown-red hackle and mallard's wing. The midge flies, or such (the larger of that size) as streams are angled with, will do well in Lough-Glore. The trout here are generally smaller than on the large lakes, but caught in much greater number, from one pound to three pounds weight. It is also remarkable for many and large pike; some have been caught of 35lbs. weight, but frequently from 8 to 10lbs. On the large lakes, particularly Derevaragh, when the day does not suit angling with the fly, if the angler be provided with trolling apparatus, and minnow, gudgeon, or loach, he will have good and assured sport, catching perch sometimes of 2 and 3lbs. weight, and pike also. The fishing on Lough-Lane is pretty much of the same character with that of Lough-Glore, and both are within less than two miles of Castlepollard. ANGLING EXCURSIONS PART III. MEATH, LONGFORD, AND CAVAN. BY GEOFFREY GREYDRAKE, ESQ. 7 Away to the brook, All your tackle out-look, Here's a day that is worth a year's wishing: For 'twould be a spite, To want tools when a man goes a fishing. Away, then, away! We lose sport by delay; But, first leave our sorrows behind us : We are all gone from home, And a fishing she never can find us." COTTON'S POEMS, EDITOR'S PREFACE. Although the readers of this new edition of the Angling Excursions of Gregory Greendrake, Esq. may not, to speak piscatorially, care a Pinkeen about me, I, nevertheless, yield to the self-indulgence of introducing myself to their notice. Having heard of the intention of Messrs. GRANT and BOLTON, to publish a new edition of this delectable volume, I felt a consanguineous obligation on me to offer my assistance, not only to edit the work of my deceased relative, but also to add this third part from my own experience. The family of the Drakes were all anglers, and its female members not the least practised in the art, delighting, particularly, to catch gold-fish and gudgeon, although the success was various; some hooking and netting, while others could never get so much as a nibble or a bite. My relative intended carrying his Angling Excursions farther, but, before he could effect that intention, he, himself, perhaps in retributive justice, was hooked and landed by the great poacher Death. Oh then in peace let Gregory Greendrake lie- It may be expected that I should establish my consanguinity, Gregory having been an Englishman nothing can be more easy; but as the reader will probably dispense with ancestral details, and be as well satisfied of my veracity as pleased with my brevity, I shall merely say that the English and Irish Drakes are branches of the same genealogical stem, being descended from Peter the Fisherman, which I can prove as clearly and conclusively as the Pope of Rome can his legitimate and lineal succession to, and inheritance of, the pontifical chair. We had great men of the family besides Gregory. The celebrated Sir Francis Drake was of our blood, and possessed the family propensity to fishing, but it was in salt and troubled waters; history, however, records that he baited his hook to some purpose. The Duckworths are also near relations, as were the poets Stephen Duck, and Sir John Suckling, whose name, originally, was Duckling, but it having been pointed out to him, that the diminutive ing attached to him the reproach of being a minor poet, he substituted the letter S for the initial D. The Quakers, or as it should be spelt, Quaakers, are all descended from the Drakes, and by right the title of Eggmount belongs to our family. But that upon which I, for one, most pride myself is, that an ancestor of ours was such a favourite with Saint Patrick, that it was at his request, and to gratify his angling passion, that "he took the cold stone out of our waters on the seventeenth day of March," which theretofore was wont "to linger in the lap of May." If any one should doubt the truth of this fact, I fearlessly refer him to the Psalter of Cashel wherein, if he take the trouble to look for it, he will find it recorded, together with some curious angling anecdotes |