276 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



still more passes away, and not even one trout is seen searching for food. 

 There may be something in the weather occasioning this, truly, in certain 

 cases, but my experience leads me to the belief that the interval is that 

 between the commencement of the hunt by day, which good trout invari- 

 ably prosecute, and the retirement of the night hunters. I have had 

 this view strengthened by the behaviour of tame trout which, not long 

 ago, I kept solely for experiment. There was one old stager who always 

 fed at night and laid up all day in his particular drain pipe. The others 

 would feed from my hand, but not he, and yet he was of the SaTmo fario. 

 Perhaps there is no rule by which it is possible to prognosticate the 

 likelihood or improbability of sport. Usually the weather is consulted, 

 but with scant result. A water with a breeze on it is always better than 

 that with a dead, silent, opressive calm, under the June sun, rendering 

 every surrounding luminous with reflection and sweltering with heat. 

 Besides, the ripple so disturbs the certainty of the vision of the quick- 

 sighted trout that a much shorter distance may be observed between the 

 fish and his would-be captor, with no disadvantage to the latter. After 

 warm slight showers is a capital time for trout-fishing, especially with the 

 bait under consideration. I like a thoroughly wet day also, but dark, 

 lowering, windy days, with no rain, are really good for any fish, except, 

 perhaps, tench and eels. I know there is an old proverb which runs 

 something like this (I quote from memory) : 



When the wind blows from the west, 

 It blows the hook to the fish's nest ; 

 When the wind blows from the south, 

 It blows the hook to the fish's mouth; 

 When from the north and east it blows, 

 Seldom the angler fishing goes. 



All of this is, of course, nonsense, and should not influence anyone. I 

 kept a diary of sunsets and sunrises (when I saw them, and that was 

 often), winds and general weathers, for years, and when I sat down to 

 start this book I tried to hammer out some useful lesson for my meteo- 

 rological jottings. Alas ! all hitherto received conclusions were falsified 

 in many cases, and results showed a sublime indifference to atmos- 

 pherical suggestions. I found good days, with fifteen, twenty, thirty 

 pounds of fish, accompanied by east winds, north winds, south winds, 

 rains, hails, snows, thunder, and other curiosities of Jupiter Pluvius. 

 Dull days brought large fish, bright days, with the fragrant zephyr, &c., 

 little or nothing. That first law of the heavens order was absent ; 

 and this was my disappointed conclusion meteorology is all a farce as 

 regards fishing, and weather-wisdom and angling are no more connected 

 than are the moon and green cheese. 



Not without much sorrow do I pronounce this conclusion. I know 



