THE GRAYLING. 147 



upon ; yet a large grayling will sometimes venture to run at a 

 minnow, and some very fine ones have been taken by that means ; 

 but the best of all baits for him are the artificial fly, at which he 

 rises even more boldly than the trout, and is not easily frightened 

 away if you chance to miss the rise ; but will rise again and again 

 till you capture him, or he is alarmed by feeling the prick of the 

 hook. Graylings however are often found to rise without taking 

 the fly at all, merely knocking it under water as if to drown it in 

 mere malice because the fly is not exactly to their taste ; when 

 this occurs, a gentle attached to the fly will often excite their avid- 

 ity, and indeed in bright weather, when the glassy smoothness of 

 the water renders it ill adapted for fly fishing, a gentle or a cadis 

 attached to a small artificial fly will often be found to answer, 

 when the artificial fly alone would be altogether rejected, A gray- 

 ling rises in a much quieter manner than a trout, as he generally 

 takes hold of the fly before he turns, so that you ought to have 

 your eyes about you, and strike the moment you perceive him rise, 

 otherwise you will probably be too late. When a grayling is hook- 

 ed he does not often give a tearing struggle like the trout, and is 

 rarely known to flounder about at the surface, but darts down at 

 once for the bottom, endeavouring to rub out the hook against the 

 ground ; this you must take especial care to guard against, not 

 using a longer line than is absolutely necessary, and having a rod 

 of such a stiffness, that by keeping the butt well up you may have 

 a good command over your fish, and this you can never have with 

 a very limp rod, which however well it may cast a fly, is ever ill 

 adapted in capturing a weighty fish. In playing a grayling the 

 great object you must ever attend to, is to keep him from the bot- 

 tom, and from running you under the weeds, for which reason, 

 play him down the stream, and when he is exhausted, either grasp 

 him in your hands, or use your landing net, and never attempt to lift 

 him out by the rod and line, unless he be a small one, and his loss 

 of little or no consequence; for though the grayling from the 

 small square looking aperture like the grey mullet, appears to be a 

 leather mouthed fish, he is not so in reality ; for he has numerous 

 small teeth in the jaws, though none on the tongue, and but a 

 few on the anterior part of the vomer, and from the small flies 

 that are used in fishing for him, if hooked only in a fleshy part, 

 the hold may give way ; though a grayling is not as is generally 

 stated the most tender mouthed of all fishes : an opinion I cer- 



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