Pennell was really trying it on with this one. Most if not all of the articles had previously appeared in his Fisherman’s Magazine, which also ran his book on pike as a part work. I guess he had a good excuse, because the Fisherman's Magazine was the first mag to be published that dealt purely with fishing. Nonetheless, there are some interesting pieces in Fishing Gossip, not least because one of the essays is from Thomas Tod Stoddart and there is another from William Stewart, whose writings are scarce. On the positive side, Fishing Gossip is relatively cheap, even as a first edition; on the negative side, most of the contents make me want to go to sleep and unless you have a serious Pennell collecting habit, I would go for a downloadable version of this one, because it is available on the ‘Net, scanned as a pdf, for free. Definitely a pot-boiler.

No quality reprints available, but relatively cheap from dealers.