274 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



is also another reason : tie worm is of but little specific gravity (as 

 compared with the water), and floats or rolls down stream at almost the 

 same pace as the stream. On the other hand, the line, if allowed, bags, 

 and a portion of it remains np stream. If this portion be considerable, it 

 retards the strike sufficiently to cause the loss of many a fish. No more 

 than four or five feet of fine gut should be allowed to present itself to 

 the stream, excepting when a deep pool necessitates otherwise. It must 

 be borne in mind that the worm ought not to grovel on the ground, but 

 skip, as it were, over obstacles, and generally behave itself as if it were 

 unencumbered. It then, by force of the stream as much as by the will 

 of the fish, leaps, as it were into the jaws of its foe. 



When this consummation so devoutly to be wished has arrived, the 

 first signs are a stoppage. In many cases this is imperceptible to the 

 eye of the uninitiated, but the experienced worm-fisher instantly detects 

 it, and unerringly acts on it by striking. But the/ striking must not be 

 too rashly done. Lower your rod down stream till the line is straight 

 without bearing on the fish, and strike sharply. This plan may be 

 practised whether you are using the four-hook tackle or the one-hook 

 perhaps a second or so later for the latter. 



Now, no one in the world can determine on paper the precise moment 

 when the strike is most likely to have effect. Let us consider for an 

 instant how a trout takes a worm. I have watched the proceeding often 

 enough in an aquarium. The worm falls and floats down stream 

 wriggling. The trout advances and takes it, if possible, by the tail end ; 

 if not by the tail, then by the head, and sometimes quite crosswise. The 

 most general aim of the fish is to take it tail first, this part being best 

 liked. Hence the tail is allowed to hang down in preference to the head. 



Somebody may ask how I know the fish like the tail of a worm in 

 preference to the head. By experiment, I answer. I chopped up worms 

 so that the heads and tails were mixed, and distributed them promis- 

 cuously to my trout. They invariably "went for" the tails with a 

 decision which, to say the least of it, was remarkable. 



From these facts I deduce the desirability of the leading of the worm 

 from head to tail. At the same time one repeatedly finds the fish taking 

 the worm by the head and biting it through evidently from pure 

 " cussedness " and then leaving it. In such case Mr. Stewart's tackle 

 has them instanter. 



It is certainly very deadly in this respect, but I conceive its chief 

 detrimental feature is the habit it has of catching at everything within 

 reach, as if it were really endowed with vitality. 



There is another way of catching trout with the worm : Bait a needle 

 tied in the middle (as described in the chapter on Eel Fishing) on the 



