good fish are taken near the mouths of the rivers.

This leads me to consider the defects of the present law, which is
by no means adapted to protect and increase the breed of Salmon.

In the first place, the close time is too short. It commences in
the Ribble nominally (for in reality the fish are openly killed
all the year through) on the 15th September, and ends on the 31st
of December; whereas it ought to extend to the end of April, for
the following reasons. A very large proportion of the fish are
spawning in January and February, and I have even seen a spawning
fish as late as the 3rd of April. In the evidence given before the
House of Commons in 1825, it was proved by a fisherman from the
Tweed, that in March for one clean fish that was caught there were
ten caught that were not so, as they were either fish that had not
spawned, or Kelts, that is, fish which have finished spawning but
have not returned to the sea, and are then flabby, unwholesome,
and unfit for food. A very large proportion of these Kippers or
Kelts do not go to the sea until April, and not then without there
is a fresh in the river, for, like the Smolts, they seem disposed
to remain in the rivers until they can avail themselves of the
assistance of a flood, to enable them more easily to reach the
sea.

Another defect in the present law is that it fails to secure a
supply of good fish to the upper proprietors. There are no
provisions in it (or they are not enforced) for giving the fish a
free passage, no prohibition of nets, traps, or devices for
stopping them in their progress up the rivers. No daily or weekly
close time, but everywhere there is so short-sighted a selfishness,