24 THE WONDERFUL TROUT 



What more lovely than in a clear, low 

 'stickle/ below where tiny streamlets meet, 

 perhaps a foot in depth, or it may well be 

 not more than six inches, than to take out 

 by dexterous angling with the fly and a 

 tapered line, not more than fifteen feet from 

 top of rod in length, from six to eight or 

 more three-to-the-pound trout, and perhaps 

 a pounder as well, and this when the sky is 

 blazing blue without a cloud ! And when 

 this ' stickle ' is not more than twenty yards 

 in length, terminating in the big pool below 

 the hold of every trout that is feeding on 

 the shallow what more delightful than to 

 stalk its lower tail-race, work it up foot by 

 foot, pull each successive capture down into 

 the pool, and kill each on the channel below, 

 disturbing naught above ! Then, when you 

 have done with it, what more astonishing, it 

 may be to an onlooker, to observe the water 

 in the centre of the stream, as you cross over 

 to another similar summer ' stickle/ does not 

 take you so deep as the top of an ordinary 

 ankle-boot ? l 



1 An excellent article upon the practice of this art 

 Trout-Fishing in Rapid Streams will be found in a 



