172 TROUT FISHING. 



well to the surface, and fairly within reach ; and then 

 you have only to put the net under him, or keep his 

 eyes above water, and tow him into it. Mind this ; or 

 the landing net and your man will prove enemies, in- 

 stead 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 school- 

 boy. But it may be proper just to observe, that how- 

 ever favourable the time may be to all appearance, yet 

 trout will seldom rise well just before rain, 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 every day whipped at, by anglers, 

 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 and 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 between them. 



TROLLING, or spinning a minnow, is the other most 

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

 poaching. It is however very rarely done in a proper 

 manner, though every man, as a matter of course, up- 

 holds 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 chance whatever ; but have remedied 

 a few trifling defects that it had, and put Chevalier in 

 possession of the improvement. The great advantage 

 ( \ of it is, that it takes the trout when they run and bite 



