METHODS LESS RESPECTABLE. 47 



These flies, if flies they may be called, are cast and allowed 

 to sink, nnless the water is shallow, and drawn slowly. Some- 

 times the trout take them best when they are worked fast 

 in jerks, and occasionally it happens that drawing them 

 quickly along the top of the water gives the best results. 



Blow-line Fishing, with the natural fly, is not so much 

 practised on chalk streams as formerly, owing, I expect, to 

 the improvement in the manufacture of artificial May-flies. 

 The rod and tackle for this method of fishing come more 

 appropriately in the chapter on Lake Trout, and will be found 

 described in Chapter lY. ; but in lieu of drifting in a boat, and 

 allowing the fly to be blown along the surface of the water, 

 the angler merely uses the wind to waft his fly over the 

 water. "When it has gone far enough out, his best plan usually 

 is to let it fall on the water and drift where the stream may 

 take it. Or he may endeavour to drop the fly just in front of 

 a rising fish. On chalk streams this method is rarely practised, 

 except with the May-fly, though any fly which may be on the 

 water will do as well. Dibbing or dapping the fly, described in 

 the following chapter, will also take chalk- stream trout. 



Minnow Fishing, though very deadly, is hardly ever practised 

 in chalk streams, except in some deep pool or hatch hole, where 

 the trout do not often rise to a fly, or for the purpose of catch- 

 ing some aged and ravenous old fish which is as destructive to 

 its kind as a pike. Any of the minnow tackles described in 

 the following chapter may be used with advantage, the drop- 

 minnow tackle (see Chapter III.) being particularly deadly in 

 hatch holes. The angler must, of course, fish fine, keep as 

 much out of sight as possible, and cast across, and rather up 

 than down stream. A large minnow will be taken greedily in 

 early spring, but in summer a small one is better. Fishing with 

 live bait — minnows or other small fish — is described in the 

 chapter on Thames trout fishing. 



Worm Fishing in chalk streams is but little practised, the 

 fish giving so much better sport with the fly. So far as I 

 know — and my worming experiences on chalk streams are very 

 limited — the larger the worm, the more certain it is to take 



