NORTHUMBERLAND 



embarked upon a career of crime. Nor do I ever feel the 

 least inclination, even at the most depressing moments, 

 to fish worm in what might be called midway rivers, 

 such as the Teme, the Monnow, or the Lugg. It is 

 the hard-bottomed, stony mountain rivers and burns, 

 with their wilder seeming trout that alone invites the 

 clear-water worm fisherman of the right sort. And 

 fishing worm up the middle of a good-sized river, 

 though I have done by comparison little of it, is more 

 interesting to me than worming a burn, of which I 

 have done a great deal. I need hardly say it has been 

 always widely practised in the Border country. Far 

 too much so indeed, for instead of confining the worm 

 to the three summer months, it is freely used in the 

 fly season — in April, May, and early June, on the open 

 waters. Worm fishing in April is most unsportsman- 

 like, almost as bad as worming in discoloured flood 

 water — the very lowest form of trouting. But in a 

 river like the North Tyne, where the trout cease to 

 rise, I fancy early in June and in a normal summer the 

 river runs low and clear for most of the time ; there, 

 surely, up-stream worm-fishing provides a worthy and 

 skilful method of enjoying many pleasant days, and 

 killing fish in the very pink of condition, that though 

 they might rise again in September, would be by that 

 time falling sadly away. Not many south or west 

 country fishermen know much of this branch of trout- 

 ing, and most are inclined, as I have said before, to 

 look on all worm-fishing as poaching. 



Personally I do not like Stewart tackle. And by 

 the same token that great fisherman did not use the 

 worm very much himself, and was, I think, rather 

 u 30s 



