VIII 

 TROUT-TICKLING 



[Reprinted from The Field, October 20th, 1S77.] 



Not tickle a trout ! Not tickle a — ! Well, what 

 next ! Why the only real, true, and certain way of 

 filling a creel on a hot July afternoon is by this 

 same ' tickling.' I don't mean to say that it is right, 

 particularly if you tell tarradiddles about it after- 

 wards ; but depend on't it is to be done, and is 

 done, worse luck ! in every trouting - county in 

 England. Oddly enough, I never heard much* of it 

 in Scotland. 



Suppose a low, bright, broken stream, with lots 

 of big stones in its bed, — say the Upper Bade or 

 the Exe, the scene of many of my youthful atrocities 

 — a blazing hot day, and as much chance of catching 

 a sword-fish as a trout by any fair means. Nothing 

 to eat at Withypool but the eternal eggs and bacon, 

 and the certainty that somebody or another is 'at it ' 

 every day of the week. We'll do it ! Walking 

 down the stream, we heave ' rocks ' and handfuls of 



2 H 



