8 AN ANGLER'S BASKET. 



part of the fish on certain lengths and under favourable 

 conditions, which is one reason why some of the clubs limit 

 the time during which it may be practised. The chief skill 

 is required under ordinary conditions in knowing just where 

 the fish are located in a very thin water, for a trout, and a 

 good one, too, will often lie in water barely sufficient to 

 cover him in hot, sunny weather. If you perceive a fish in 

 such a place, do not throw your worm either at or above 

 him ; you will only scare him out of his senses, and he will 

 rush off up stream at a mad speed, indicating to his friends 

 as he goes that there is a man with a pole on the way. See 

 that your worm drops a foot or eighteen inches behind and 

 slightly on one side of him ; in almost every case he will 

 return down stream instantly and take it without hesitation. 

 The outside length of the worms used for this kind of 

 fishing should not be more than two inches at their full 

 stretch. 



GRAYLING FISHING. 



There is no good grayling fishing in winter without the 

 frequency of frost and a constancy of little freshes. In mild 

 weather the fish soon lose condition, and unless keen frost 

 prevails, at least at intervals through the winter, grayling 

 begin to show symptoms of the breeding season by the end 

 of January. 



You may laugh as you like about the delights of a frosty 

 winter's day on the banks of the bonny bright Yore, " Ye 

 gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease," but I 

 should like to see the state of excitement into which some of 

 you would get as your mite of a red- tipped float came jauntily 

 down the eddying ripples here, just where this rough and 

 tumbling stream tails off into a fine eddy and runs merrily 

 on for fifty yards or more before it calms down in the broad 

 still pool. There is the rosy atom of a float in the clear 

 water, while all the banks and all the bare branches are 



