CHAPTER VIII 



MINNOW AND WORM 



It is some time since I have done much spinning 

 for trout, and a long time since I used to keep the 

 apparatus for this art ready and in order. If I 

 should happen to want to spin now I could lay my 

 hand upon rod and reel, but it would be an arduous 

 business to collect the other essentials. Some- 

 where, I know, there are spinning flights of various 

 kinds and sizes, somewhere there should be an 

 envelope full of traces, somewhere there is a varied 

 assortment of artificial minnows in a state of more 

 or less dilapidation, but I could not say for certain 

 where most of these things may be. Time was 

 when I had most of them ready for use and took 

 them out several times in a season, but now spinning 

 for trout is only a very occasional thing with me. 



This is decidedly not a matter of principle, rather 

 of circumstance. For a good long time I have had 

 very little to do with waters where spinning is a 

 seemly and possible thing. But supposing that 

 Fate again cast my lines for me at all frequently 

 in the Thames or some such river they would often 



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