PREFACE. Vll 



for Spinning the eel-tail bait for Pike and Salmon, and, 

 as I hope, a satisfactory solution of that long vexed 

 problem, the " Preserved Bait" question. 



In Pond and Float-fishing generally, modern practice 

 and precept have not perhaps left much to be said that 

 is in the strict sense of the term new ; but on these 

 subjects I may at least claim that nothing is put for- 

 ward which I do not myself know to be true. 



It happened to me, in fact, owing to a combination of 

 circumstances, to have graduated in turn in every branch 

 of fish-catching, from Sticklebacks to Salmon; and 

 perhaps few men have wandered further over the 

 United Kingdom in search of sport than I have, or 

 dipped their flies into wilder or more varied waters. 

 Lodging often for weeks together in shepherds' huts 

 and cabins, and sometimes with no lodging but the 

 heather, and no companion but my rod, I have fished 

 Scotland, river and loch, from Coruisk to the Tweed, 

 and back again to the Ness. Ireland I know from the 

 Bush to the Blackwater. I have taken Salmon from 

 the Welsh Conway, and Trout from the grass-covered 

 basin of Llyn Ogwen ; and many a time has my creel 

 grown heavy amongst the fairy foams and brawling 

 shallows of the Dartmoor and Exmoor streams, or by 

 the teeming waters of the Itchen, the Avon, or the 

 Thames, on whose banks I have spent many of the 

 pleasantest years of my life .... But I need say no 

 more on this point — if, indeed, I have already not said 

 too much. My book will be judged, not by who writes 



