128 LAKE AND POND FISHING. 



unable to obtain a bite. This plan can of course only be avail- 

 able where the bottom is clear and unobstructed, for if the ground 

 should prove foul, the first weed or other obstacle your hook comes 

 in contact with, it will probably become entangled in, and which if 

 you get clear of without further loss, will have injured your bait, 

 as well as alarmed the fish. 



In pond fishing for trout, early and late I have found them 

 take best in shore, but in the middle of the day I have met with 

 most success in fishing the deep water; excepting always the 

 cattle stands I have also found, even where the waters have 

 been by no means clear, that it is the better plan to fix the rod in 

 the ground, and to stand back at some distance from the brink, 

 having a little stray line so that the fish may not be checked too 

 suddenly by a dead pull on the rod when he bites. I have seldom 

 used a float, as it has rarely happened I could not detect a bite by 

 the motion of the line. Whenever I have met with a bite, my 

 practice has been to step forward, and raising the rod gently get 

 in the stray line, if the fish by running right off does not tighten it 

 for me ; and when the line is nearly tight to strike sufficiently 

 hard to hook the fish. If I struck before I got a tight line, I 

 generally found the fish made his escape, and I rarely hooked 

 a fish striking in that way unless he had previously gorged the bait. 

 The effect of striking when the line is slackened is only to pro- 

 duce a kind of jarring sensation, which is rarely sufficient to drive 

 in the hook beyond the barb, though it is pretty certain so to alarm 

 the fish as to cause him to cast away the bait, which, whilst the 

 affront is fresh in his memory, he will not very easily be prevailed 

 upon again to lay hold of. 



And now in concluding my remarks on the trout I would strong- 

 ly recommend every one of my angling readers when they have 

 succeeded in catching their trout, if he be large enough to retain, 

 forthwith to put him out of his misery by rapping his nose pretty 

 smartly against the toe of their boot or shoe, whichever for the time 

 being they may chance to wear, which will speedily kill him. Some 

 of the smaller ones may be easily dispatched by turning back the 

 heads over the shoulders till a faint crack informs you you have 

 succeeded in breaking the fish's neck, who then dies instantaneous- 

 ly. The latter plan has however this disadvantage : that when you 

 come to fry these trout, every head will separate from the 

 shoulders in the frying pan, in a manner that appears very 



