106 MINNOW TRO&LINQ. 



favorable for fly fishing, as my companions, one of whom is a 

 crack fisherman, caught little or nothing. Strange to say I tried 

 the real minnow, happening to fall in with a shoal of them after- 

 wards, and did not succeed in getting a single run with it. Since 

 this I have tried the kill devil several times, and have every rea- 

 son to be satisfied with the result, having in fact taken trout 

 with it, when I could move them with nothing else. What the 

 trout take it for I connot pretend to say, but I am certainly of 

 opinion they do not mistake it for a minnow, seeming to rush at 

 it with that fatal eagerness with which we see moths repeatedly 

 rush into the flame of a lighted candle. But be this as it may, it 

 is one of the best baits an angler can use ; the great drawback is 

 the great labour that is absolutely indispensable, to carry it on 

 as you must draw it very rapidly through the water at least as 

 twice as fast as the ordinary rate of spinning a minnow, and I 

 have always found it succeed best when drawn down the stream. 

 With other artificial minnows, even the red and tinselled killdevil, 

 which some anglers almost swear by, I have not succeeded so well ; 

 and perhaps it was owing to this, that I was prejudiced so much 

 against the brazen one; so that upon the whole I am not surprized 

 that those who are ignorant of the merits of the latter, should be 

 so ready to declare the artificial minnow to be " justly discarded 

 by all judicious anglers/' Let them but try the brazen one, and 

 I have no doubt they will change their opinions as readily 

 as I did. 



As it requires an open scope to spin either the killdevil or the 

 minnow properly as any obstacle that impedes the action of the 

 rod causes the bait to stop and so exposes the trick it cannot be 

 carried on with any degree of comfort in a stream whose banks are 

 much incumbered with wood : butin'that case the diving minnow 

 may be resorted to, and is a mode by which I have taken some 

 very excellent fish. The tackling is contrived by attaching a 

 wire about two inches long to an ordinary sized hook, just of such 

 a size in fact as coming out of a minnow's mouth, will repose 

 closely cheek by jowl with one side of his face. This hook and 

 a portion of the wire attached to it must be loaded with as much 

 lead as can be thrust down the minnow's throat without bursting 

 the bait, which being tied like an ordinary hook to a piece of gut, 

 is baited with a long but fine slocking needle, which being run in 

 at the minnow's mouth and out again at its tail, the link and hook 



