2i6 ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



absurd. Provided you have a good body of water, and 

 can cast a good line, you may fish down with as much 

 success as if you went in the opposite direction. What I 

 contend for most strongly is, the necessity for keeping out 

 of sight. Trout will not take the lure, fish how you may, 

 if previously they have seen the apparition of an angler 

 on the bank. If the shadow of your rod be thrown on 

 the water, you must at once change your side, or fishing 

 will be useless. To keep in the shade, everyone who 

 wishes to be successful finds it necessary to kneel, creep, 

 crawl, or sit collier-fashion, as the occasion demands. 



The fishing from the village of St. Boswells to what 

 is called the " Long stream " inclusive, ranges over a piece 

 of most excellent water. The banks are like all the 

 banks of the Tweed with which I am acquainted, soft 

 and grassy, and pleasant to fish from ; and here, when 

 the river is moderately full, there is not much occasion 

 to wade. Still, I would advise the angler in this 

 district, at all ordinary times, to encase himself in his 

 stockings, otherwise he may lose a deal of good water. 

 We have taken some nice trout in this reach of the 

 Tweed, notably one very fine fish which weighed some- 

 thing over two pounds, at a time when the water was 

 spent to a shadow, and not a fish worth mentioning had 

 been taken for weeks. I caught it late one evening, 

 with the finest gut cast I had in my possession, and a 

 very small teal drake, with a black hackle, — a favourite 

 fly, which I find very deadly at all seasons, and which, 

 with the occasional variation of the red instead of the 

 black hackle, forms one of the flies of nearly every cast I 



