156 TROUT FISHING 



a spate. But I do not care to go on long at it or to 

 try for a big catch. Three or four fish, just to 

 recapture old thrills, and I am done with it. 



It is otherwise on the tiny burn which you fish 

 upwards, moving from pool to pool. There I will 

 take my full day with gratitude. The worming I 

 mean is in the bigger river, where you can take a 

 dozen fish from a single lay-by if you give your mind 

 to it. When you know that in a day or two you 

 would be able to catch those same fish or their likes 

 with a fly worming in a flood seems a poor game after 

 a bit. It is one of those things which have deterior- 

 ated with the lapse of years. There is no such 

 worming now as there was on that wet morning when 

 I found that the free water at Rhayader, far from 

 being destitute of trout as I had supposed, was 

 replete with great fish. How they rushed for the 

 worm ! And how they fell back one by one into 

 the turbid stream with resounding splashes ! I am 

 sure I lost twenty pounds of trout that morning, 

 little fool that I was. That was worming if you 

 like, and such sensations will never come to me 

 again. 



The clear-water worm by fairly common consent 

 {exceptis excipientibus !) should be placed in a differ- 

 ent category, and it represents an art of fairly high 

 order. It calls for many of the qualities required 

 by the fly fisher, as an eye for water, a sensitive 



