196 BAITING WITH GENTLES. 



but you must angle for that fish with careful 

 neatness, with a fine gut-line, delicately leaded 

 and without the incumbrance of a float. A 

 lively worm dropped in rapids, eddies, mill-tails, 

 worked artistically with the water, and ever and 

 anon spinning it against it by means of a swivel- 

 trace, will rarely fail in affording diversion. 

 After nightfall in summer, worms, trolled upon 

 the surface of the water, will be taken by large 

 trout. 



Gentles or maggots come next after worms as 

 good bottom-baits. They suit the summer and 

 autumn months best. They are bad baits for 

 gudgeon, perch, pike, eels, and, indeed, for most 

 kinds of fish that prey upon other fish. I have 

 observed that in some parts of the Thames they 

 are not so good a bait as worms, and that in other 

 parts of that river they are better. Wherever 

 the puntmen ground-bait constantly with worms, 

 there the worm will prove the best bait. On the 

 contrary, where gentles are the constant ground- 

 bait used, gentles are the best angling bait. Fish 

 become more or less habituated to either of these 

 bait^, the more or less frequently they find them 

 in the water. For instance, the puntmen at Sun- 

 bury on Thames usually throw in worms as their 

 ground-bait for barbel, and in consequence that 

 fish takes the worm there more freely than it 

 does the gentle. At Teddington the fishermen 



