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CHAPTER XL' 



ON TROLLING, DIBBING, OR DAPING, &C. 



WE will confess, that though we are about 

 to write a chapter on minnow-spinning, we 

 do not sit down to do so with much inward 

 satisfaction, for it is a mode of fishing that we 

 are not over-attached to, and it is one which 

 we never practise, unless when we absolutely 

 want a dish of trout. Generally speaking, 

 however, it is decidedly the most killing mode 

 of taking trout, and, perhaps, the only way 

 of catching the largest fish of that species. 

 The picturesque observation of Walton is true, 

 "that a large trout will come as fiercely at a 

 minnow, as the highest-mettled hawk doth 

 seize on a partridge, or a greyhound on a 

 hare." Now, so unaccountable are the tastes 

 of men, that we are not unwilling to subject 

 ourselves to the charge of, in this one 

 instance, lack of judgment; for we cannot pre- 

 vent ourselves from avowing, that one of our 

 objections to the use of the minnow is, that 



