98 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



covered rocks, with ice-cold water dripping down. 

 How straight the current goes for the rock ! Note 

 its corrugated, muscular appearance; it strikes and 

 glances off, but accumulates, deepens with well- 

 defined eddies above and to one side; on the edge 

 of these the trout lurk and spring upon their prey. 



The angler learns that it is generally some obstacle 

 or hindrance that makes a deep place in the creek, 

 as in a brave life; and his ideal brook is one that lies 

 in deep, well-defined banks, yet makes many a shift 

 from right to left, meets with many rebuffs and ad- 

 ventures, hurled back upon itself by rocks, waylaid 

 by snags and trees, tripped up by precipices, but 

 sooner or later reposing under meadow banks, deep- 

 ening and eddying beneath bridges, or prosperous 

 and strong in some level stretch of cultivated land 

 with great elms shading it here and there. 



But I early learned that from almost any stream 

 in a trout country the true angler could take trout, 

 and that the great secret was this, that, whatever bait 

 you used, worm, grasshopper, grub, or fly, there was 

 one thing you must always put upon your hook, 

 namely, your heart: when you bait your hook with 

 your heart the fish always bite; they will jump clear 

 from the water after it; they will dispute with each 

 other over it; it is a morsel they love above every- 

 thing else. With such bait I have seen the born 

 angler (my grandfather was one) take a noble string 

 of trout from the most unpromising waters, and on 

 the most unpromising day. He used his hook so 

 coyly and tenderly, he approached the fish with such 



