CLEAR WATER WORM-FISHING 61 



of water, and he would not take long to come to 

 the conclusion that this lure is anything but a 

 destructive agent. The idea may have originated 

 in some vague notion of the deadly efficacy of the 

 worm during spates or in disgust with some 

 fisherman serenely watching his float, provided 

 with an unsavoury but fatal bait used in a 

 lethargic and uninteresting fashion. 



How far this prejudice is from fact I hope to be 

 able to show, and, so far as the brooks are con- 

 cerned, I hold with sufficient reason that to 

 delude trout with worm in the dog-days is one of 

 the most difficult arts in the whole category of 

 angling methods, and demands an amount of 

 knowledge of the habits of the fish with experience 

 in the manipulation of the lure not exceeded in 

 any other form of trout-fishing. Moreover, it is 

 anything but a prosaic sport, and for continual 

 change of water, scenery and manoeuvres, as well 

 as its excitement and interest, it deserves a 

 higher plane than it holds on the roll of the trout- 

 fisher's attainments. 



That it spoils a water for fly-fishing is a theory 

 which I cannot subscribe to either, since you have 

 a natural and commonplace article of food in 

 which the only deception is the concealed steel 

 contrasted with a highly artificial attempt at a 



