92 MINNOW TROLLING. 



Minnow Trolling. 



Of all the wiles that have as yet been discovered for entrapping 

 the wary trout, there is none in ray humble opinion more exciting 

 than trolling with a minnow, and if the runs obtained are fewer 

 than the rises got in fly fishing, and the numbers of captures in 

 the same proportion, yet the fish that are caught with a minnow 

 are usually much larger than you can move with a fly, whilst the 

 consciousness that you are employing the most effectual means of 

 getting hold of the largest fish the stream contains, whom it is 

 almost in vain to expect to attract by any other kind of bait, serves 

 to keep your hopes alive through many a fruitless cast. In waters 

 that have been a great deal fished with a fly, the larger fish, from 

 having so often felt the prick of the hook, and sustained so many 

 narrow escapes in consequence, become at length too cautious to 

 risk their lives for so insignificant a morsel as a fly, delicate as 

 they may esteem it, yet when a lordly trout perceives a minnow 

 come spinning within his reach, partly perhaps between avidity to 

 lay hold of something that will at least afford him a mouthful, and 

 partly perhaps in very wrath that so insignificant a little rascal 

 should thus impertinently presume to dance about and cut his 

 capers unawed by his august presence, he dashes forth at once to 

 seize and crush the impudent intruder, no doubt purporting to 

 make a meal on him afterwards ; and the sport such a trout as 

 this affords, is superior to catching a dozen of the common ave- 

 rage that are taken with a fly. 



But for all this when a person has acquired much proficiency in 

 fly fishing, he has seldom the patience afterwards to follow up the 

 practice of trolling sufficiently long to acquire the degree or science 

 necessary to insure even a moderate portion of success, the conse- 

 quence of which is, that the trolling tackle is cast aside almost as 

 goon as it is taken up, and the pursuit denounced as flat, stale, and 

 unprofitable, long before it has been fairly tried for neither this 

 or any other branch of angling is to be brought to perfection by a 

 day or two's practice, and though knowledge in fly fishing, or any 



