BRITISH SPOET PAST AND PRESENT 



Waltonian times. The hair most approved, by the way, was 

 that ' taken from the middle of the tail of a young and healthy 

 grey or white stallion.' It must have been an efficient tool, 

 that rod and line in one, or they were deft anglers who used it ; 

 for ' he that cannot kill a Trout of twenty inches long with two 

 (hairs next to the hook) in a river clear of wood and weeds . . , 

 deserves not the name of an Angler.' 



The brook trout would be in poor condition which, measur- 

 ing twenty inches, does not scale 3| to 4lbs. We might arrive 

 at a fair idea of seventeenth-century trout-fishing by tying to 

 the top ring of a salmon rod the prescribed length of hair-line 

 duly graduated to the fly. 



The line was not always of hair. IMr. Thomas Barker,^ 

 it will be remembered, used one of silk and hair for night fish- 

 ing : ' My lord sent to me at sun-going-down to provide him a 

 good dish of Trouts against the next morning by six o'clock. 

 ... I went presently to the river and it proved very dark. I 

 threw out a line of three silks and three hairs twisted for the 

 uppermost part ; and a line of two hairs and two silks twisted 

 for the lower part — with a good large hook. I baited my hook 

 with two lob worms, the four ends hanging as meet as I could 

 guess them in the dark. I fell to angle. It proved very dark 

 so that I had good sport : angling with the lob worms as I do 

 with the flies on the top of the water : you shall hear the fish 

 rise at the top of the water : then you must loose a slack line 

 down to the bottom as nigh as you can guess ; then holding 

 your line straight, feeling the fish bite : give time, there is no 

 doubt of losing the fish, for there is not one among twenty 

 but doth gorge the bait : the least stroke you can strike 

 fastens the hook and makes the fish sure, letting the fish take 

 a turn or two ; you may take him up with your hands. Then 

 the night began to alter and grow somewhat lighter : I took 

 off the lob worms and set to my rod a white palmer fly made of 

 a large hook : I had good sport for the time, until it grew 

 lighter : so I took off the white palmer, and set to a red 



' Art of Angling, Kj.'il. 



182 



