FLT FISHING. 77 



Scholar. It is indeed a trout worth flogging the water a week 

 for ; even a larger one than that you caught. This has really put 

 me in such spirits that the bare hope of securing such another will 

 be sufficient to keep me up to my work, which I must say I wish 

 I could execute in a more masterly manner : for if you per- 

 ceive when I use an extra degree of strength in order to cast out 

 a greater length of line, my heel fly pitches foremost fairly dis- 

 tancing the stretcher in a manner by no means satisfactory to their 

 owner. 



Old Angler. The fault, I am inclined to think, rests much more 

 with your rod than yourself. Your top joint I perceive is a great 

 deal too long and limp, which causes a second action after you 

 have made your cast, thereby jerking the line, and causing the 

 further extremity of it to recoil back, and the more force you 

 employ the more likely is this to occur. Try my rod, and see if 

 you can't throw better with it than with your own. 



Scholar. Yes, I find I can throw a perfectly straight line, and 

 should doubtless succeed admirably if your rod were not quite so 

 heavy. But ah! there I've hooked him. A beautiful fish, see there 

 he springs out of water ah ! there he's gone. 



Old Angler. But lost through no want of skill on your part ; 

 that fish I saw was only slightly hooked from his leaping out of 

 water and plunging about on the surface, which is generally a 

 sign the hook has taken but a slight hold, and therefore the fish 

 requires to be played more tenderly, as with a strong strain the 

 hold will surely give way, as indeed it often will under such cir- 

 cumstances, play your fish as tenderly as you may. 



But notwithstanding the scholar at once discovers the old 

 angler's rod casts a fly with greater accuracy than his own, he 

 soon feels it too heavy to fish with in comfort for any length of 

 time ; and so we soon afterwards find him in possession of his 

 rod again, with which he is whipping away with great assiduity, 

 but with as little success some couple of hundred yards or so down 

 the stream ahead of his companion, who having now furnished his 

 pupil with a good stock of wholesome instructions, is at length 

 commencing business on his own account, and seriously trying his 

 best to procure a good dish or two of trout ; and notwithstanding 

 his chances are by no means improved by the scholar's going over 

 the ground before him, he still contrives every now and then to 



