THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



or three miles of stream in Buckinghamshire ; nor 

 gentlemen anglers in Ross-shire so well fenced in 

 from chance intruders as by the side of a brook 

 which skirts a gentleman's pleasure-grounds within 

 twenty miles of London. 



Fly-fishing is most assuredly that branch of 

 angling which is the most exciting, and which 

 requires the greatest skill with the greatest per- 

 sonal exertion to ensure success. Fly-fishing 

 in a preserved water, where a gentleman, per- 

 chance in ball-room dress, alights from his car- 

 riage to take an hour or two's easy amusement, 

 is no more like fly-fishing in a mountain stream 

 where the angler wanders free to seek his fish 

 where he will and take them where he can than 

 slaughtering pheasants, in a manner fed at tho 

 barn-door, and almost as tame as the poultry which 

 are regularly bred in the yard, can be compared to 

 the active exertion of grouse-shooting. The angler 

 who lives in the neighbourhood of, or visits even 

 the best trout streams, has not unfrequently to walk 

 miles, if he wishes to bring home a well-filled creel, 

 before he finds it worth his while to make a cast. 

 When he has reached a place where trout are plen- 

 tiful, and disposed to rise, his labours then only 

 commence. He now and then hooks a large trout, 

 which he has to keep in play for some time before 

 he can draw him to land. The fish has run all the 

 line out, and with strong effort is making up or 

 down the stream ; and the angler, being no longer 



VI 



