206 " Swimming the Worm' 



with a cork much better than at the 

 bottom a style of fishing which Mr. 

 Francis M. Walbran has made popular 

 under the title of " Swimming the Worm." 

 Keen, frosty weather is the time for it, 

 and I hope to have some more pleasant 

 days at it with him on some of Cotton's 

 favourite north-country streams. 



NOTE. Since I wrote this chapter, in which 

 Cotton's remark about the grayling being a dead- 

 hearted fish is referred to, I took a friend, a salmon 

 and trout- angler, who had never caught a grayling, 

 to the Test: his first fish was one of two pounds, 

 which fought so well and so stubbornly that, when 

 I turned every now and then from my fishing to 

 watch his bending rod, I thought he would have no 

 reason to call a grayling dead-hearted. Later on, 

 among a few brace of good fish I killed, was one 

 of two and a half pounds, which fought splendidly, 

 compelling me to follow him forty yards down 

 stream, and, for a time, spoil one of the best bits 

 of water fishable in a wild November north-easter. 

 I was so warm from the exertion of fishing and 

 playing fish in such a gale, that I did not think of 

 the weather till I noticed the blue nose of my friend 

 the keeper, who was carrying my net : he shivered 

 so that I sent him home. 



