TROUT FISHING. 167 



the landing net and your man will prove enemies, 

 instead of assistants, to your sport. Nothing will so 

 soon, or suddenly, rouse a sick fish as the sight of a 

 man or a landing net. With regard to the time 

 and weather for fishing, it is now well known to 

 almost every schoolboy. But it may be proper just 

 to observe, that however favourable the time may be 

 to all appearance, yet trout will seldom rise well 

 just before ram, or when they have been filled by a 

 glut of flies. Moreover, trout will frequently cease 

 to rise well, even at the best of times, from being 

 erery day ic hipped at, by angler 9^ from the same 

 bank. My plan, in this case, is to go to the opposite 

 side, and throw against (or rather under) the wind. 

 A friend arid I once caught two and twenty brace 

 by this means, while a whole tribe of professed 

 anglers, who were fishing from the windward side, 

 caught (as we afterwards heard) but three fish be- 

 tween them. 



TROLLING, or spinning a minnow, is the other 

 most general mode of trout fishing ; or, I may almost 

 say, trout-fjoac/ihig. It is however very rarely done 

 in a proper manner, though every man, as a matter 

 of course, upholds his own system. I, like all the 

 rest, did the same, till after fancying for years, that 

 I could challenge any one, was beat and laughed at 

 by a trout-killing divine. Now, however, I have not 

 only got master of his plan, against which all others 

 that I had ever seen, read of, or heard of, had no 



