THE COMMON BROWN TROUT. 271 



to the extent of about 15 per cent. Such experiments are not, however, 

 unimpeachable as to real test. There are natural conditions of atmos- 

 phere and water which are utterly beyond the estimation of the angler, 

 and which will ever render such tests unreliable, unless they are con- 

 ducted through a long series of days or even months. Perhaps there is 

 something in early training which disposes me to this exclusive liking 

 for the one hook. Anyhow, I prefer it to the quartet Stewart recommends. 



For my own part, I prefer a No. 5 or 6 Nottingham hook, that is, the 

 hook used by the tackle makers there almost invariably, whipped on 

 with a bristle or piece of silver wire projecting about a quarter of an 

 inch above the shank. It should be baited by running the hook along 

 the length of the worm, from the mouth to within in. of the tail. In 

 order to do this well it is necessary to have a little silver sand in a 

 receptacle near, or attached to the worm tin, to dip the worm in, that 

 it may not slip between the fingers. 



I never attach shot, because I do not believe in impeding the worm 

 at all. If one be fishing in deep water, sinkers are admissible, but then 

 it is not in pools that the angler usually finds his sport. It chiefly is in 

 the midst of streams of shallow water where he will get fish, and to 

 use shot when throwing up-stream is of no utility, beyond producing the 

 properly silent or nearly so delivery of the bait. 



Besides all this, also, the staying of the bait in the stream is an 

 unnatural proceeding, aud is calculated to arouse the suspicions of the 

 wary old fish most likely to regard your bait with favour. Throw in a 

 worm, good angler, and watch it. How it twists and twirls, and then 

 rolls over and over, higgledy-piggledy, amongst the stones and debris of 

 the ground of the stream, and finally into the jaws of a trout. There is 

 ordinarily no stoppage whatever in its progress until it reaches that bourn 

 from which no worm returns the trout's mouth. Why, then, should 

 the angler place shot on his line ? To retard it, say some, so that the 

 fish may have time to take it. Unnatural again ! Depend upon it, good 

 trout-fisher, the nearer you in all things approximate to the natural the 

 better your sport. 



The worms in use for worm-fishing are chiefly the dew or maiden worm, 

 the red worm, the brandling, and the marsh worm. 



The dew or maiden lob, as I have before indicated in the chapter on 

 Barbel, seems a sort of sexless worm of the species Lumbricus terrestris, 

 or common earth worm. By well watering the grass of a closely-cut lawn 

 just before sundown, and traversing it afterwards with a lantern, one 

 can always get enough for a day's fishing. They should be kept in damp 

 moss the sphagnum is the best that they may scour themselves and 

 become tough and lively. 



