THE CAPTURE Vl 



of, say, thirteen to fifteen or twenty pounds, 

 with the average at the half-pound (in the 

 river Deveron) lost only one or two trout. 

 This, of course, includes larger trout, say 

 three-quarter-pound to one and a quarter or 

 larger, which I took to bank, or netted if I 

 was ' possessed by a landing-net.' This pro- 

 portion, I flatter myself, will compare well 

 with any work in which all were taken to 

 shore or entangled in a net. 1 



I do not ask my readers to accept this 

 method, but I back myself to do it all 

 through a season with much advantage. Of 

 course there are occasions on which a net 

 is almost absolutely indispensable, and these 

 occasions do not require recapitulation, just 

 as there are plenty occasions when a half- 

 pound trout and even larger can be gently 

 lifted (not jerked or c bunged ' out) bodily 

 from the top-rod strain, and safely deposited 

 at your feet not swung over head as if try- 

 ing to emulate Mark Twain's ant going over 

 Strasburg steeple. What in salmon-fishing 



1 Somewhat similar advice, however, is given by the 

 author of the Angler and the Loop Rod, p. 107, though 

 recorded somewhat differently and the method not just 

 the same. 



