26 AN ANGLER'S BASKET. 



period of the year it is a worthy prelude to the endeavour to 

 land a pounder from an almost impossible attitude in a 

 sycamore tree. It seems to me the art of bobbing has a 

 future before it. The best place to land a bluebottle is on a 

 window pane, but you cannot take a window down to the 

 river side with any degree of pleasure. If you succeed in 

 catching about twenty-five of them put them in a medicine 

 bottle, and the next stage in the proceedings is to get them 

 out without getting twenty of them out at the same moment. 

 But, to be serious, if you succeed in getting hold of a 

 good, bright, busy fly, bait him gently on a No. 4 Kendal 

 hook, which should be whipped on the finest and best gut 

 you can buy ; the whole tackle should be the best possible, 

 and the fly should be baited carefully so that after he is 

 impaled he retains a partial use of his wings and legs, and 

 so creates a slight commotion when he touches the surface 

 of the water. He should depend from the end of a long stiff 

 rod, so that he just reaches the water and kicks up a gentle 

 bobbery thereon, said bobbery being most attractive to trout. 

 Not an atom of slack line should be allowed to touch the 

 water, or the fish will be scared in an instant, and the position 

 should be chosen so that the sun, falling under the shadow 

 of the overhanging trees, does not light up the line and gut 

 like a line of light to be visible to all fish in the neighbour- 

 hood. The utmost care is required both in approaching the 

 tree, or any other selected spot, and in the method by which 

 the fly is allowed to reach the water. Moreover, as in stone- 

 fly fishing, you should give a trout a couple of seconds before 

 striking him. July and August are the times when the fish 

 most affect the edges of the river, where it is overshadowed 

 by trees. You will understand that when you are astride of 

 one of the lower branches of a good sycamore, say eighteen feet 

 above the river, the real fun of the situation begins when 

 you have hooked a fish and have got to play and land him 

 without making an undignified somersault into the water. 



