PLY FISHING. 87 



Dapping amongst the bushes, it must be admitted, though a 

 most killing mode of angling, is one that levies a heavy tax on 

 the angler's patience, as in spite of all your skill and precaution, 

 either the hook or somepart of the line will get entangled in the 

 leaves or twigs of the bushes, as also in rushes or some other of 

 the numberless impediments an angler so frequently encounters by 

 the water side. By this means your baits are often mangled and 

 destroyed, and you have the trouble of rebaiting ; and sometimes 

 your troubles don't even end there, as it occasionally happens you 

 lose your hook in tugging away too freely in the hopes of clearing 

 it, and sometimes you lose some portion of your line as well ; and 

 almost times out of number are you, in order to prevent these 

 consequences, compelled to drop your rod and advance to clear 

 your line, with the certainty that by so doing you scare away 

 every fish in the pool. Before now indeed I have broken my line 

 purposely when caught in this manner, rather than spoil my chance 

 of a pool in which I bargained I should get hold of a good fish ; 

 and thus rigging out my tackle afresh, have found my labours re- 

 warded according to my expectations ; when regaining the re- 

 mainder of my broken gear, I have continued my pursuit with far 

 greater satisfaction than if such a misadventure had never oc- 

 curred. 



The rod for this kind of fishing should be much stiffer than a 

 rod used for casting the artificial fly, which every time you missed 

 a fish would be pretty certain to flip up your line, and with such a 

 spring as to cause it to entangle round every twig it might come 

 in contact with, which a stiff rod is not so apt to occasion; added to 

 which a limp rod does not give you sufficient command over the 

 fish after you have hooked him. In dapping I have often found 

 the ragged stick employed by the old angler to clear the scholar's 

 line a highly useful appendage, not only to regain my line when 

 entangled overhead, but even to recover such portion of it as a fish 

 by playing the rogue with me may have managed to run off with. 

 I first made the latter part of this discovery when put to my wit's 

 end by a fish having walked off with my foot line, in fact the only 

 one I had with me, so that unless I recovered it my sport was over 

 for the day. As the stream, though tolerably deep just where the 

 accident occurred, was not a very wide one, and as the fish had 

 broken my tackle by running me under the roots by the near 

 bank, I calculated he was lying in hover there ; so supposing the 



