334 TROUT FISHING. 



with a solid butt of ash, at the extreme lower end of which 

 should be attached a simple click -reel with a balance handle, 

 but without a stop, capable of containing thirty yards of London- 

 made hair and silk line, tapering equally from the reel to the 

 point. The bottom, or leader, as it is called generally in 

 America, should consist of about five yards of round tapering 

 silkworm gut, and the flies should be three in number. Plain 

 rings should be used on a fly-rod, and not the new tubular 

 metallic guides, which stiff'en it too much, and prevent its equal 

 curvature under a strain. 



For bait-fishing, spinning a minnow, or daping with a grass- 

 hopper, a stouter rod may be adopted, similar to that used for 

 ordinary fresh-water, or shoal salt-water fishing. 



The best baits are the Salmon-roe prepared as I have described 

 it, common brandlings or dew-worms, and any small fish, and 

 especially its own young fry, which may be used either dead on 

 spinning tackle such as is described above, or alive, hooked 

 through the back under the first dorsal fin, and sunk Avith shot 

 to Avithin a few inches of the bottom. In this mode, the 

 slightest possible quill float should be adopted. The spinning 

 is by far the more sporting and exciting method ; and in large 

 streams running directly into salt water, where the finest and 

 greatest Trout are found, and where they do not willingly rise 

 to the fly, none is much more killing. In addition to these, a 

 grasshopper dropped deftly on the surface just before the nose 

 of a fat, basking, lazy Trout, at the end of a short line, which 

 is called daping, will oftentimes kill when all other plans fail ; 

 shrimps will be found efiective in salt-water creeks and river 

 mouths, and in those sea-bays which the fish haunts when in its 



