140 ON MINNOW AND PARR-TAIL FISHING. 



is but a thin sprinkling that have left their winter 

 resorts, and begun to frequent the shoals and streams, 

 best adapted for the spinning lure. In May, June, and 

 July, the principal trouting months, they become, in 

 most rivers, through feeding, more dainty and capricious. 

 Large and ill-favoured minnows are viewed by them 

 with suspicion, and it is needful for the angler to oppose 

 craft to craft, and fastidiousness, in his choice of a 

 proper bait, to their fastidiousness in the selection of 

 food. Accordingly, it behoves him to pick out the best 

 and fittest of the penk or minnow tribe ; those, namely, 

 which, being of a medium size, are well-shaped and 

 silvery. All the spawning and unhealthy ones, unless 

 in an hour of pressure, ought to be rejected ; also all 

 stickle-backs, and, I may add, loaches, although when 

 no better are to be had, they prove a tolerable enough 

 substitute for the lure in question. Sand-eels also, and 

 small garvies, or herring fry, I have seen employed 

 with effect in some rivers, both near and at a distance 

 from the sea. 



And as to the capturing of minnows for bait, this may 

 accomplished in a variety of ways. It may be done 

 during a rising or fully -flooded water, by means of a 

 small pout or bag net, used among petty eddies, sub- 

 mersed tufts of grass, and various nooks and shelter- 

 places which the current may happen to form with the 

 banks. In these it is, that this tiny fish finds natural 

 refuge from the violence of the swollen stream, and the 

 net in question, when worked low and with the current, 

 I have generally found pretty effectual, as a means of 

 obtaining it in considerable quantities. Indeed, during 

 the spring months, when the minnow is in demand for 

 salmon-fishing, the pout-net forms on Tweedside the 

 readiest contrivance for procuring a supply. 



