PREFACE. Vil 
for spinning the eel-tail bait for Pike and Salmon, and, 
as I hope, a satisfactory solution of that long vexed 
problem, the “ Preserved Bait” question. 
In Pond and Float-fishing generally, modern practice 
and precept have not perhaps left much to be said that 
is in the strict sense of the term new; but on these 
subjects I may at least claim that nothing is put for- 
ward which I do not myself know to be true. 
It happened to me, in fact, owing to a combination of 
circumstances, to have graduated in turn in every branch 
of fish-catching, from Sticklebacks to Salmon; and 
perhaps few‘ men have wandered further over the 
United Kingdom in search of sport than I have, or 
dipped their flies into wilder or more varied waters, 
Lodging often for weeks together in shepherds’ huts 
and cabins, and sometimes with no lodging but the 
heather, and no companion but my rod, I have fished 
Scotland, river and loch, from Coruisk to the Tweed, 
and back again to the Ness. Ireland I know from the 
Bush to the Blackwater. I have taken Salmon from 
the Welsh Conway, and Trout from the grass-covered 
basin of Llyn Ogwen ; and many a time has my creel 
grown heavy amongst the fairy foams and brawling 
shallows of the Dartmoor and Exmoor streams, or by 
the teeming waters of the Itchen, the Avon, or the 
Thames, on whose banks I have spent many of the 
pleasantest years of my life .... But I need say no 
more on this point—if, indeed, I have already not said 
too much. My book will be judged, not by who writes 
