282 GRAYLING, HAUNTS OF, AND BAITS FOR. 



being very large, and standing up like that of the 

 perch, is a perfect picture, covered with scarlet 

 waves and spots intermingled with purple. The 

 little velvet (adipose) fin on the back, near the 

 tail, is also dark purple, and the fish smells like 

 a cucumber. At the season I am speaking of, 

 grayling rise freely at the fly; but it requires 

 some experience and judgment to suit their 

 tastes. The heads and tails of fords with a 

 gravelly or sandy bottom are their favourite 

 haunts. They prefer rather deep water to shallow. 

 The grayling takes a maggot very eagerly, and is, 

 I think, a much more gamesome fish at the fly 

 than the trout. I have frequently had them rise 

 at my flies a dozen times in as many successive 

 casts. They are not so easily alarmed as the 

 trout, and many a time have I made half a dozen 

 changes in my flies, and cast them all kinds of 

 ways over a fine grayling, which kept continuously 

 rising all the time, before I could induce him 

 to look at them. They are rarely ever taken with 

 the minnow. The grasshopper, when the water 

 has been for some time low and fine, is an excel- 

 lent bait ; and I find the artificial grasshopper 

 much more killing than the natural one, perhaps 

 from the greater facility with which it can be 

 used. A little red worm is also a good bait for 

 grayling when the water is a little disturbed. 

 The spawning time of the grayling is the month 



