FIRST EMPTYING. 33 



shines from a cloudless sky, will send down a singularly 

 cold river, owing to the greater amount of snow melted on 

 the hills by the sun. This is one reason why on some of 

 the most likely days anglers are puzzled to know why there 

 is no rise of fly on the water. Floods in these rivers are 

 most of all to be dreaded. An ordinary fresh coming gently 

 as the result of steady rain seldom does much harm, but a 

 sudden and violent flood tearing down the bed of a river is 

 apt to displace the stones and sweep away most of the 

 bottom food on which so much depends, besides carrying 

 down into some other fellow's water yearling trout on 

 which you have spent so much labour and time. I recall a 

 flood which, between Tuesday and Thursday, in a Yorkshire 

 river, altered absolutely the bed and bottom of the river so 

 that it would have been quite unrecognisable, except for 

 the surroundings, even by one who had known it as I had 

 for twenty-five years. 



MINNOW-SPINNING IN HEAVY WATERS. 



In spinning a minnow in a rather heavy water, too many 

 anglers make the mistake of working the bait down the 

 river rather than across it. Speaking generally, the latter 

 method will be found to account for more fish than the 

 former. Fish are all lying with their heads up-stream, and 

 a brilliant bait passing along their line of vision is naturally 

 seen by many more fish when it passes across the breadth 

 of the river, than when it is merely worked down under 

 some bank in the hope of securing fish seeking shelter 

 there. A trout is always on the look-out for food ; if he is in 

 his hiding-place he always has a weather-eye open for any tit- 

 bit that may come within his reach. Another point worth 

 remembering is that you can scarcely overdo the working of 

 your minnow in the matter of speed, so long as you do not 

 work it out of the water and make it skate along the surface. 



