162 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



trolling-line ; but at the end of the sixth, dead and 

 motionless, was a huge eel with the whole of the lost 

 gorge-hooks, brass- wire and all, in its maw, having 

 been choked in its attempt to swallow the seventh ! 

 Mr. Stoddart most unluckily did not weigh his prize, 

 but estimated it at 20 Jbs. We have searched for, but 

 have been unable to find, this singular circumstance 

 recorded in the last edition of The Angler's Companion' 

 we are certain, however, that it was in the first, and 

 at any rate we have heard the moving tale from T. T. 

 S/s own animated lips. In the last edition of his 

 book which is really the most complete and interest- 

 ing, as it is about the best- writ ten, of angling- works 

 we find set forth, however, a very remarkable mode of 

 grilse-fishing in Heaton-mill cauld, in which, with a 

 worm and a float, in the mode of school-boys bobbing 

 for perch, on a bright day, with the water low, clear, 

 and calm, Mr. Stoddart killed a " noble grilse" out of 

 a shoal of about a dozen which were visible sailing 

 about in the pool. 



In April and May the Teviot swarms with smolts, 

 both of the solar and of the eriox, so that the angler 

 must be careful. He cannot possibly avoid hooking 

 one occasionally ; and if he finds, when he lias hooked 

 one, that a sharp twitch will not suffice to disengage 

 the hook from its mouth, he ought to pull the smolt 

 out as quickly as he likes, but not with a jerk that 

 may involve the risk of seriously injuring or killing it 

 should it fall on a stone, and return it gently to the 

 water, hoping that it may be his luck in the future, 

 if not to kill it, at least to pay his " devours" to it 



